


The Wolf in the Tower

by exclamation



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Curses, Imprisonment, M/M, Magic, Witch Stiles Stilinski, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2018-12-02 01:42:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 57,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exclamation/pseuds/exclamation
Summary: Too many people are scared of witches so when Stiles accidentally sets a building on fire with magic, he is taken prisoner and dragged before Lord Hale. Rather than leave an untrained magic user free, Peter Hale thinks he might be able to make use of Stiles' skills and hands Stiles over to his sorceror Deaton to be trained. Stiles is still unsure about his future, but he's even more confused when he finds out that one of his new duties involves feeding the black wolf imprisoned at the top of one of the towers. There's something very strange about this wolf and Stiles can't help wondering if magic might be involved.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU set in "generic medieval fantasy world" and involving a great deal of disregard for historical accuracy. If you are keen on history, be prepared.

The flames that licked the wooden planks of the building were tinged in purple, betraying their magical origin, but they responded well enough to the ordinary water that was being dumped on them by the bucket chain. The building was just an old shack, disused and falling down, and no one would care too much that it was destroyed, since only Stiles ever used it. But the fact that it had been destroyed with magic would get a lot of attention. The entire village had seen the colour of the flames and the entire village knew that Stiles liked to mess about in that shack. It wouldn't take much of a leap of deduction to work out what had happened. 

Stiles didn't know what to do about this. He watched the adults of the village, his dad included, pass buckets up and down the chain, those at the ends filling the buckets or throwing the water on the burning wood. The fire would be gone within an hour but the castle would hear about this. Even if Stiles' dad encouraged people to remain silent, it would only take one person telling the story to a friend in another village for rumours to start spreading. Rumours would be worse than just the plain truth, because if the story was given free rein to spread on its own, the word that reached the castle would probably be that an evil witch had burned half the village down. Better to make sure that the true story reached their first: an accident that hurt no one. 

Stiles considered running away. He could pack up a bag of supplies and be at the next village over by dawn. He could head to the market town and buy a horse and just keep going until he found somewhere that no one knew his face. He was smart and knew his letters and numbers. He could get work for a scribe or a shopkeeper or something. And he could stop his experiments with magic forever. 

That last thought stung like a whip. His magic was the only thing that tied him back to his mother. They had shared this gift and she had taught him a few basic spells before the sickness had taken her, so now performing spells was something that let him think of her, let him honour her memory. Never doing magic again would be a wrench but it was clear he couldn't practice it without risking exposure. 

Stiles slipped through the shadows back to the house he shared with his father. He went through his belongings, packing some clothes and a few bits of food that wouldn't be destroyed on the road. He considered how much money to take, not wanting to leave his father short. He was still weighing that decision when the door to the house opened. 

"The fire's out," his father said. 

"Good," Stiles said. "I'm sorry." 

"I know you are. I know you didn't mean this." His eyes fell on the pack, stuffed to bursting, at Stiles' feet. 

"Are you planning on running away?" 

"Everyone will know I did it." 

His father considered. The fact that he didn't instantly tell Stiles to stop being silly and unpack was telling. 

"Give me a few minutes to pack my things," his dad said. Stiles frowned at him in confusion. 

"You're coming with me?" 

"Of course I'm coming with you. You're my son." 

"But... you have a life here, a job, responsibilities. I don't want to take that away from you." 

"Stiles, there is nothing in this life more important to me than you." He came to Stiles then and wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug. Stiles relaxed into the hold, feeling the warmth and comfort there drive away some of his despair. 

"Besides," his dad continued, "I doubt anyone would believe me if I said I didn't know where you'd gone. They'd try to get the answer from me." 

They waited until the others of the village had retired to their houses, which took some time as there were many who stood around chatting about the fire and what it meant long after they would normally have been asleep. Once there was no one to see their flight, they left their home and started out across the woods. The journey was slower than by road, but their route would be less obvious. They stumbled through the darkness, struggling to keep a firm direction without enough light to see by. Occasionally they would come to a clearing where they could look up and judge their direction by the stars, always needing to correct their route a little. Even near the village, the familiar shapes of trees were hard to identify and once they got further out, the woods ceased to be familiar at all. Stiles felt like they could have been going in circles, like this was a nightmare he would never escape from. 

But then, shortly after dawn, the trees thinned out and they came to the of a field. They paused to eat a little food and rest their feet while Stiles' dad surveyed the land and tried to identify just where they'd got to. 

"We should head south east across the fields," he said, "and in a couple of miles we should come to a road and we should take that south." 

"South?" Stiles said. He hadn't thought much about the direction except 'away' but it seemed his dad had thought a lot further ahead. "We're going to the Argent lands?" 

"The Hales won't be able to follow us there." 

"But the Argents hate witches as much as the Hales do." 

There were few places Stiles had ever heard of that were fond of witches. Most people seemed to assume that witches were evil or used them as a handy scapegoat for natural disasters. Lord Gerard Argent though was known for public executions of any suspected of witchcraft. 

"I'm not suggesting we stay there long," Stiles' dad said, "but the Argents will have no reason to look for us and we can pass through their lands to be accepting places." 

Stiles nodded. He still felt uneasy about going to the Argents but he didn't have a better suggestion. He would trust his father. 

They finished a very meagre breakfast and then started walking away. Stiles was thoroughly exhausted, wanting to collapse and sleep in a hedgerow for a few hours, but the more distance they could put between them and the village, the better. They crossed fields that were left to winter fallow, mud clinging to their boots and making each step seem all the more tiring. Stiles' legs ached and he was almost willing to lie down and let the Hales take him by the time they reached the road. 

At that point, the going became a little easier and Stiles had enough of a burst of energy to walk on another mile or so, but this wouldn't last long. His dad seemed to realise this too. 

"We'll find somewhere we can take shelter off the road," he said, "and sleep for a few hours. It will be better anyway if we avoid passing any traffic heading for market." 

Their campsite ended up being a damp ditch behind a hedge. When they lay down in it, they were almost invisible to the road. Someone would have to look very carefully to notice them. Stiles lay down with his head on his lumpy pack, not caring about the cold or the hard ground, and he was asleep almost at once. 

He was woken up what felt like a heartbeat later by a boot prodding his chest. Stiles' eyes shot open and he stared up at a young man in the uniform of the Hale guards. He looked down at Stiles from, his hair a mess of dark brown waves and his face bearing an expression that was surprisingly kindly, but Stiles couldn’t ignore the fact that he was armed. The man had a sword on one hip and a dagger on the other. He hadn't drawn either weapon yet but Stiles was already weighing up the option of a fight and deciding it would not end well for him. 

There was the snort of a horse and Stiles turned, peering through the hedge to see a huge, dark man waiting, sitting astride one horse and holding the reins of another. That man was also armed and Stiles felt his odds drop further. He glanced across at his father, hoping he would have some plan to get out of this, but he was still asleep a little further up the ditch. 

"Are you Stiles?" the soldier asked in a quiet tone. 

"No," Stiles answered. 

"Are you lying?" 

"No." 

The man stared at him a minute longer. 

"There are two possibilities," the man said, still speaking quietly so as not to wake Stiles’ father. "If you are not Stiles, then it's very suspicious that you would be sleeping in hiding during the day like this. I would be forced to assume that you are criminals on the run from justice. It would be my duty to arrest you both and take you back to the castle to be questioned. On the other hand, if you are Stiles then my lord has no interest in your father. I will take you back to the castle but your father can go home." 

"So that's the choice? I come quietly or you arrest my father too?" 

"The only other choice is that you wake him up and try to fight. I don't want to hurt either of you so, please, be sensible." 

Stiles had never been considered sensible, but he could see the sword this man wore and he knew that his father had nothing to fight with except a small belt knife. He would fight to the death to protect Stiles but that death would undoubtedly be the result. 

"Alright," Stiles said. "I'll come with you." 

He left his father asleep in the ditch and scrambled around the hedge back into the road. He wanted to leave some sort of message, to say goodbye, but he couldn't let his dad wake without risking his life. It was safer to just leave quietly. By the horses, the larger man took a length of rope from his saddlebag and gestured for Stiles to hold out his hands. The man wasted no time in tying Stiles hands securely together and then knotting the other end of the rope to a loop on the front of his saddle. By that point, the other man had mounted and the two riders started walking their horse along the road to the north. Stiles had to walk with them or get towed along the ground by his wrists. 

They kept their pace slow, letting Stiles keep up easily, but after his trek through the woods the night before and not nearly enough sleep, Stiles had started out exhausted. He wasn't sure how long he would be able to cope with walking today or what these soldiers would do to him if he did collapse. Would they wait for him to find his feet again? Or would they start his punishment by hauling him along rough ground until he was torn and bleeding? 

He hoped it was the former, especially since they hadn't set off at a gruelling trot to make him suffer, but he couldn't easily ask the question. He wasn't sure how they would respond to questions at all, but he could at least test that one out. 

"What's going to happen to me?" Stiles asked. 

"That's for our lord to decide." 

"It was an accident, you know." 

"You accidentally did a spell?" the dark soldier asked, sounding amused and doubtful. 

"Setting the shack on fire was an accident. I'm not some evil witch out to destroy the kingdom. I just made a little mistake." 

"That's not for us to decide," the dark soldier said. 

"Look, Stiles," the other man said, "it's not for us to decide what happens to you, but you'll get a chance to make your case to Lord Hale. You can explain what really happened." 

"Do you think he'll listen to me?" Stiles asked. 

The other two shared a look that seemed to have a whole conversation in a few moments of silence. 

"I hope so," the first soldier said finally.


	2. Chapter 2

They stopped in a small town for the night. There was a local guard post and so Stiles' captors, who he'd learned were called Scott and Boyd, took him there. Stiles didn't get to see much of the town as he walked between the two horses but a lot of the locals turned to see him being escorted through their streets. Stiles spent the night in a stone cell with only a wooden bench for furnishings, but he was exhausted enough from his flight and from walking all day that he managed to sleep soundly. 

They fed him decently. He got chicken soup and a lump of bread for his evening meal and then a thick porridge for his breakfast. It wasn't exactly luxury, but Stiles was sure that it was better than some prisoners got in other places. He was given an opportunity to relieve himself and then Scott led him outside again for the next stage of their journey. 

"Is it really necessary for me to be tied up?" Stiles asked. "You've got horses. You can't think I'm going to run away from you." 

"We can't take chances," Scott said. "Sorry." 

He actually did seem sorry. Stiles wondered if they might have been friends if they'd met under circumstances other than Stiles' arrest. There followed another tedious day with Stiles slogging along between the horses. The roads were much busier here, being the main route between the town and the capital, and so Stiles passed pedestrians, riders, carts, and carriages. Many offered greetings to Scott and Boyd as they passed and all looked at Stiles with curiosity. 

Stiles spend most of his trek wondering what was happening to his dad. He must have been terrified to wake up and find Stiles gone, but there would be boot prints in the earth and hoofmarks on the road. He must have been able to work out what had happened or at least make a guess. Had he decided it was for the best and gone home? Or was he following Stiles on foot, ready to do something stupid? Stiles really hope it was the former and that his dad would be able to live a peaceful life now, but he suspected that the latter option was more likely. 

He wanted to ask what would happen if his dad tried to rescue him, but he didn't want to put Scott and Boyd on their guard. 

A little after midday, they rounded a bend in the road and Stiles got his first look at the city of Wolf Heart. The great, grey castle stood on the hill overlooking everything, all imposing towers and bleak walls, and the city below had more stone than wood in its building materials. It might have been because of his mood, but the whole place seemed dull and miserable compared to the villages Stiles was used to. Instead of being surrounded by trees and fields, everything seemed dead. 

It took them another couple of hours to reach the outskirts of the city, a few rough, wooden houses that were built outside of the city proper. Then came the city walls, huge stone barriers as tall as any of the houses in Stiles' village. The heavy gates opened into a tunnel that could be blocked with metal bars dropped from above, and Stiles couldn't help imagining getting trapped in there, but the guards on the gate obviously knew Scott and Boyd because the three of them were let through without hesitation. 

Stiles wasn't sure whether to be glad or afraid that his journey was nearly over. His doom awaited him in the castle but his body was aching from the long walk and he was anxious to get this over with. Whether he would live or die would be decided soon and he wished the decision done with. 

They followed the narrow streets through the town, always rising, until they reached a point where the houses thinned out and the road became much steeper. The road twisted back and forth up the hillside and Stiles panted hard, moving at a slow pace as they headed upwards. The horses seemed to be struggling as much as he was and Stiles could see why Wolf Heart castle had never fallen to invaders. Any approaching army would have to march up this road while being attacked from above and they would probably end up dead before they ever reached the castle gates. 

The climb seemed to take as long as the rest of the journey had done and Stiles was gasping and thirsty by the time the road levelled out in front of the main gates. These gates remained barred until Scott spoke to one of the guards and then they were flung wide, allowing them access into a large courtyard beyond. Stable boys hurried forward to take the horses when Scott and Boyd dismounted. Boyd swiftly untied the rope from his saddle and but he kept hold of the end so that Stiles would be force to walk like he was on a leash. 

Wolf Heart castle looked just as bleak and miserable as it had from the outside. There were stone carvings and statues decorating the walls but all in the same grey. Standing there, surrounded by so much stone, Stiles felt like he might never see green again. 

Stiles thought he would be taken to a dungeon but Scott and Boyd led him up the steps into the main entrance hall and then across a smooth floor to a pair of carved doors. Scott gave his name and Stiles' to the page who waited outside the door. This had to be the entrance to the great hall, to the seat of Lord Peter Hale. Stiles wasn't just going to be put in a cell until the lord could be bothered to deal with him. He'd been brought straight here, and that meant Hale thought this matter was a really important one. That didn't bode well for Stiles. If Hale's interest in magic doers was a minor thing, it would be easier to convince him to overlook a magical accident, but if he sent out his guards on the first hint of a witch and had them dragged straight to his presence, that meant he probably cared as much as Argent. 

Stiles was going to die. He was going to die and he hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to his dad. 

The page opened the door and announced in a loud voice, "Guards McCall and Boyd with Stiles Stilinski." 

Scott and Boyd started walking and so Stiles had no choice but to follow. He walked through the door into a hall that had clearly been built to be intimidating. Huge pillars towered up to a vaulted roof and a man sat on a stone throne beneath a giant carving of a snarling wolf's head. That thing looked like it would tear itself out of the wall and make a meal out of anyone who dared speak out of turn. Scott and Boyd bowed as they reached the front of the hall and Stiles hurried to do likewise. He needed all the mercy he could get and he would get that by not antagonising Lord Hale from the first instant. 

Hale frowned down at Stiles. 

"How old are you?" he asked. 

Stiles considered lying. If he pretended to be younger, would he get more lenience? Or would he just get a harsher punishment when he was caught in the lie? 

He chose honesty. "Eighteen, my lord." 

"I received a report that you attacked a village in my territory with magic and burned a house down." 

"That's not true, my lord." 

Peter Hale leaned forward, raising an eyebrow. His expression was severe but the corners of his lips tilted up ever so slightly, as though Stiles' comment amused him. 

"You deny doing magic?" he asked. 

"I did magic," Stiles said, "but the fire was an accident and it didn't burn down anyone's house. An old shack caught fire, a building that no one has used for years because it was in dire disrepair. No one got hurt and I didn't mean to do it in the first place." 

"You didn't mean to cast a spell?" 

"I was... I was practicing a fire-lighting spell, but in a fireplace. It worked better than I expected and the fireplace... didn't. The building would have caught fire if I'd lit a non-magical fire in that fireplace." 

"If it was a simple accident, why did you and your father attempt to flee?" 

Stiles couldn't quite keep him tone meek and subservient as he said, "Because I was afraid you might send your guards out to tie me up and drag me here for questioning. My lord." 

Hale looked to Stiles' side now and addressed Scott, "Did he attempt any magic when you captured him?" 

"No, my lord." 

"Any signs of magic in the cell you used to contain him on your journey?" 

"No, my lord. He was extremely cooperative." 

Hale turned back to Stiles. "Why didn't you attempt to escape?" 

"I don't know any fighting spells and the only spells I do know take several minutes to prepare." 

"Who taught you those spells?" 

Again, Stiles considered lying and saying that he'd figured them out for himself, but he doubted Hale would believe him and it wasn't like his mother could be hurt by the information now. 

"My mother. She's dead now so there's no point sending anyone to arrest her. She died eight years ago." 

"You have had no teacher for the past eight years?" 

"No, my lord." 

Hale nodded. He seemed to accept that as an answer. He addressed Scott once again, "Take him to Deaton. I want the boy tested." 

Testing sounded ominous but it was a lot better than execution, so Stiles supposed he should count himself lucky. He bowed and let himself be led out by Scott and Boyd. Outside the hall, Boyd handed the rope end over to Scott and they headed off in different directions. 

"I only need one guard here?" 

"Boyd finds Deaton creepy," Scott said. "It's this way." 

He started walking, leaving enough slack in the rope so that Stiles could walk alongside him without feeling like he was being towed. They headed along narrow corridors and up steep flights of stairs. The place felt cold, like the stone was leeching all the warmth out of the air. Someone had tried to make it more cheerful in places with tapestries, but they were all worn and fraying, their colours faded. The end result was that the castle looked like a dying thing instead of a dead one. 

"Who is Deaton?" Stiles asked, somewhere after their second flight of stairs. 

"Lord Hale's sorcerer." 

"Lord Hale employs magic users?" 

"A magic user, yes." 

"And what sort of tests will he do on me?" 

Scott shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. Probably he wants to see how strong you are at magic and whether you're any danger if he lets you go." 

Stiles breathed a little easier at that idea, but it would have helped if Scott had sounded a little more confident. 

They had to be in one of the castle's towers by the time Scott reached the appropriate door and knocked. The man who answered was dark-skinned and well-built, dressed in robes rather than a tunic. He smiled warmly at Scott before looking at Stiles, studying him in a single glance. 

"A new friend?" the man who had to be Deaton asked. 

"He was arrested for performing a fire spell. Lord Peter wants you to test him." 

"Of course." Deaton's face didn't betray any real emotion at that, no sign of whether Stiles could be relaxed or terrified. Stiles started to understand why Boyd thought this man creepy: his face with its pleasant smile could be hiding all manner of secrets. 

"Come in," Deaton told Stiles. He stepped back from the door to allow him access. Scott remained outside, letting drop the end of the rope. It seemed they weren't worried about him running off anymore. Stiles walked slowly into the tower room and Deaton closed the door behind him, the lock clicking ominously into place.


	3. Chapter 3

The room was large, with wide windows to allow in the light, and Stiles got a chance to look around as he waited for his test to begin. Dried herbs hung from the beams and there were more books than Stiles had ever seen before stacked on the shelves, slotted into any available gap and sometimes spilling over into piles on the floor. Other shelves held jars of powders or liquids with neat labels to identify them. The furnishings were practical, with a large number of tables affording plenty of workspace, much of which was covered with yet more books and jars. Stiles itched to get his hands on some of those books, to see what secrets lay within. All the mysteries of magic might be laid out between their pages. 

He heard the rattle of a drawer behind him and Stiles turned back to face Deaton, giving a yelp as he saw the dagger in his hands. Was this part of the test? Was Deaton supposed to see how he died? 

"Hold out your hands, boy," Deaton said. "Unless you prefer to perform magic tied up." 

Stiles wasn't sure he could perform any of his spells tied up. He held out his hands and Deaton quickly but carefully set to work slicing through the knots. The dagger was sharp and parted the threads easily and then Stiles' wrists were free again. He rubbed at the red marks where the rope and rubbed his skin raw. 

"Are they sore?" Deaton asked. 

"A little." 

Deaton went to his shelves and poked among the jars until he found a little clay pot. He removed the lid to reveal a white paste within and quickly smeared a layer around each of Stiles' wrists. It stung a little over the worst of the scrapes but after a few seconds the pain began to fade. 

"Is this magic?" Stiles asked. 

"It's medicine. Those who don't know better often confuse the two since they are both about the application of knowledge to cause a change in the world. Now, tell me about your fire spell." 

So Stiles once again told the story about what had happened, how he had practiced the fire lighting and how the poor chimney in that ruined shack had caused the fire to spread. He emphasised yet again that the fire had been an accident but Deaton didn't seem to care about that. He walked over to the cheerful fire that was burning in the grate. Stiles couldn't see exactly what Deaton did but the room instantly became darker and, when Deaton stepped back, the fire was extinguished. 

"This chimney won't catch fire," Deaton said. "Perform the spell again. Show me what you did." 

Stiles was more than a little nervous, never having performed magic in front of an audience before. He also didn't know what outcome would be best. Should he deliberately make the spell fail to demonstrate that he wasn't a threat? No, he suspected Deaton would see through that. Stiles would perform the spell accurately. It wasn't like he could do much harm to Lord Peter with this spell. 

Stiles knelt in front of the hearth and carefully reached out for the wood inside it. Despite being half-burned, the wood was cold to the touch. Stiles lifted the logs out and set them aside before picking up some thin twigs from the supply beside the fire place. Stiles arranged them in a careful pattern, Making a symbol of magic within the fire. He placed a couple of the larger pieces of wood over the top of his twig arrangement, making sure not to damage the pattern. Once that was all as it should be, he started tracing symbols on the hearth. He used his fingers, writing the symbols of power as his mother had taught him, focusing on channelling the magic into his fireplace. 

"Spirits of magic," he invoked, "bless my spell. Bring me the element of fire to light my home. I ask this gift of magic. Send your essence and your fire into this place, I ask." Then he spoke the words of magic, strange syllables that were easily garbled, easily muddled. It had taken him ten times to get the spell to work in the shack. Here it worked on the second attempt, a few flickering flames starting on the small twigs and then quickly catching on the larger bits of wood. The flames had the same purple tint to them as the fire back in the village. 

Stiles sat back and looked up at Deaton, wondering whether he had passed or failed the test. 

"Who taught you that spell?" Deaton asked. 

"My mother." 

"Is she a knowledgeable practitioner?" 

"Was, and no. She knew a few spells and a bit of herblore." 

"And you have never had a proper teacher," Deaton said. Stiles wasn't sure if he'd deduced that from his answers or if it was that obvious from the spell. "She taught you all these elements of the ritual? The laying of wood, the symbols, the request for blessing?" 

Stiles nodded. Deaton crouched beside Stiles and held out a hand towards the fire, extinguishing it with a single word. 

"Light the fire again," Deaton said. "This time, just use the invocation." 

Stiles supposed that would work. The wood was already in the correct position and the symbols had been drawn only a minute ago. He guessed that the effects of the symbols and blessing must linger. He stared at the fire, and said the magic words. 

Nothing happened. 

Stiles tried again but after three attempts failed, Deaton held up a hand to stop him. 

"You say those words like you're reciting a poem without having considered its meaning," Deaton said. Stiles frowned. The words sounded like nonsense and their only meaning was to light the fire. What other meaning was there? 

"What part of what you did was the magic?" Deaton asked. 

Stiles considered the question. "All of it? Half a spell doesn't do anything. You need the whole ritual." 

"Incorrect," Deaton said. He stared at the fire and said a single word from Stiles' spell and flames burst into life around the wood. He hadn't asked for blessing or drawn the symbols or even said the whole spell, but the magic had been more effective for him by far. His flames even looked normal, without the giveaway colour that had doomed Stiles. 

"Where is the magic?" Deaton asked again. 

Stiles thought for a minute. "I don't know." 

"A good answer. Never be afraid of admitting that you don't know something; it's the only way to learn. The magic is in the intent. When you were drawing your silly symbols and praying to magic, you were thinking about the spell and about what you wanted it to do. The words you said made your intent clear in your mind and gave you a focal point. Try again but this time take a moment to think about the spell before you say the world. Concentrate on what you want to happen." 

Deaton extinguished the fire once again and Stiles stared at the pile of half-burned wood. He imagined it with flames burning in the grate. He pictured the result he wanted and the feeling of success he'd had the first time this spell had worked for him. He imagined what he wanted and let that image fill his mind. He started speaking the spell. 

Halfway through the third word, a flame blazed into life, so hot and fierce that Stiles threw himself backwards from the fireplace. The fire burned so intensely that the flames were almost white, but only for a few moments. That was all it took for the wood to be used up and crumble into ash. The grate was dark and empty again but this time it was due to overwhelming success instead of failure. Stiles stared at the pile of ashes that had been wood moments before and then he risked a glance sideways at Deaton, whose face was still difficult to read. He was studying the fireplace carefully. 

Stiles wondered if he'd just doomed himself. Would Deaton decide he was too dangerous to leave alive? 

"What other spells do you know?" Deaton asked. 

"One to help with the growth of cabbages," Stiles said. 

"How very... specific. Did your cabbages grow to the size of buildings?" 

"No, but they were always the largest and greenest in the village," Stiles said. He had always explained that to others as being because he'd carefully removed pests from his plot of garden. 

"Did you ever experiment with using the spell on other vegetables?" Deaton asked. 

"Mom said it was just for cabbages." 

"I suspect your mother had no more formal training than you have had. We will need to go to the gardens to test this spell. Are there any others?" 

"She taught me a potion of willowbark for curing headaches, and a spell that keeps milk from spoiling for several days and there was one she said was a protection from evil. She made these charms and hung them around our home and said they'd keep us safe." 

It was a pitiful store of knowledge. Deaton waited, obviously expecting to hear more, but that was all Stiles said. She had known another few herb remedies, but Stiles couldn't remember the correct ratios and he was always nervous about poisoning himself if he tried to make them. 

"Let us try the growth spell," Deaton said. "Come with me." 

He stood and offered Stiles a hand to help him up. He didn't bother tying Stiles up again, but Stiles supposed he wouldn't have much chance escaping from a man who could conjure fire with a single word. Stiles followed him from the tower room and up another flight of stairs. Given the comment about gardens, Stiles had expected to go down, but he didn't argue. 

Instead he asked, "What will happen to me?" 

"You are woefully undertrained," Deaton said, "but you have a strong gift. If you had been sent to me a decade ago, I could have made a powerful sorcerer of you. As it stands, you will probably be competent enough to cause no more accidents." 

"I'm not going to be executed?" 

Deaton turned to him, showing his puzzlement on his face. "Why would I waste my time on you if you were going to be killed?" 

"I thought you might be seeing if I were too powerful to keep alive." 

"Lord Hale is not like Lord Argent. He understands that power is dangerous but he also knows that it can be used to his advantage." 

"So he's going to use me?" Stiles asked. 

"Probably." 

They reached a door at the top of the stairway that was heavily barred and bolted. Deaton slid the bolts back and lifted free the wooden bar. Stiles felt apprehensive again, despite the comments that he wasn't going to get killed. There had to be a reason to secure the door so thoroughly. 

Deaton opened the door and waved Stiles through first. Stiles walked out onto a wind-buffeted rooftop that was filled with pots and planters, creating a green garden up here on the stone. A narrow path twisted away between the pots and the thick greenery meant he couldn't see very far in any direction. It was almost like being in the woods back home. 

Something growled from between the bushes. Stiles spun, trying to see through the branches but all he could make out was a pair of eyes watching him. They were glowing blue. 

"Derek," Deaton said, "this is Stiles. He is my student." 

The growling didn't stop. 

"What is that?" Stiles asked, voice barely more than a whisper. 

"That is Derek. He won't harm you while I am here. Now, I want you to show me your spell." 

Stiles looked about him. "I don't see any cabbages." 

"Pick a plant," Deaton said. "I wish to see if it will work on something other than cabbages." 

Stiles did his best to ignore the growling thing in the bushes and picked a small flower in a pot near the door. He wanted to be as close to his escape route as possible. He positioned himself so he didn't have to turn his back on the growling creature and crouched down by the pot. 

Despite Deaton's words about the ritual being unimportant, Stiles performed the spell as his mom had taught him. He drew the symbols in the dirt and then touched one of the flower's leaves. He called out to magic to ask for a blessing and then spoke the words of the spell. He pictured growth and growing as well as he could when there was some unknown beast close at hand. He'd apparently gathered enough concentration because the leaves and stem grew several inches each. Another stem shot up from the earth, and another, quickly forming new flowers while fresh leaves reached out to catch the light. 

Stiles looked up from the flower, aware that the growling had stopped. Something had crept out from the greenery, a dark shape covered in black fur. A huge wolf sniffed at the air, padding forward slowly. Stiles froze, hoping that the wolf wasn't in the mood for a snack. Deaton didn't seem at all bothered by the wolf's presence. 

"Pick another plant," he said, "and try it again without the symbols and nonsense." 

Stiles kept his eyes fixed on the wolf, almost two scared to move. But surely Deaton could use his magic to protect him if the wolf pounced. Stiles crept sideways, reaching another pot, this one containing a small bush. It was very difficult to concentrate on what he wanted the magic to do, but he tried and the bush had a small burst of growth, not quite as impressive as the flower. 

"You will need to work on your focus," Deaton said. 

"Focus is not exactly easy when I'm about to get eaten." 

"Derek won't eat you," Deaton said. "He's just a little growly around new people." 

"Not exactly reassuring. Can we leave now?" 

"We should stay longer. As my student, it will be one of your jobs to feed Derek sometimes. You should let him get used to your smell." 

"Isn't there someone more qualified to feed a wolf?" Stiles asked. "An animal handler or something?" 

"Derek's care is entrusted to me," Deaton said. "If you want to be my student, you will have to get used to assisting me with my tasks." 

"I never actually said I wanted to be your student," Stiles said. Learning more about magic would be fantastic, but Stiles didn't like the fact that his life had been snatched away from him. He had been dragged here as a prisoner, taken from his dad, and basically threatened to get his cooperation. Deaton had been polite so far but Stiles didn't know how long that was going to last. Getting eaten by a wolf seemed like just one of a long list of potential dangers. He would at least like the ability to choose his own fate. 

"Lord Peter doesn't like unknown magic workers loose in his kingdom without supervision," Deaton said. "If you don't want to be my student you will have to convince him that he should trust you with your freedom." 

"You could tell him I know less than half a dozen spells and that I'm not a threat." 

"You have the spark of power. You might not know how to use it yet but with the right training and a lot of practice you could be a threat. Lord Peter is not one to take risks. He will want to keep you where he can watch you." 

"Meaning I'm trapped in this castle for the rest of my life?" 

"One way or another, yes. Being my student is your best option." 

"Even if it means spending quality time with an angry wolf?" 

"Derek isn't angry," Deaton said. "He's just sulky." 

The wolf turned his head towards Deaton and gave another growl. Stiles would have sworn that Derek had understood Deaton's comment and objected to it.


	4. Chapter 4

They returned to Deaton's room where the sorcerer rang a bell and then, when a page arrived in response, ordered that some food be brought for the two of them. Deaton bade Stiles sit and then he moved about his room, checking the titles of books, occasionally pulling one from its place. 

"Do you know how to read, boy?" Deaton asked. 

"Yes." 

Deaton gave a satisfied nod and then set half a dozen books down in front of Stiles. He returned to his shelves, considering them carefully. 

"I must plan a training schedule for you that doesn't interfere with my duties to Lord Peter. This means that much of the time you will be expected to read and absorb the material without my assistance. I will set you tasks and expect you to use your wits to find the solution." 

That sounded a lot more interesting to Stiles than have information recited at him, which was how the village teacher had tried to teach him. He was sometimes surprised that he'd made it out of that school with the ability to read at all because he'd found the lessons impossibly boring and spent most of the time daydreaming or getting punished for daydreaming. 

Deaton selected some jars, bottles, and pots from his shelves and set them down next to the books. He added a few pieces of equipment, like a pestle and mortar, a small metal pan, and a few mixing bowls. After a few minutes' consideration, he added one or two extra items and then handed Stiles a slate and chalk. 

"Tomorrow afternoon," Deaton said, "I will ask you to use these items," he gestured to the array of objects on the table, "to create three potions. One should cause sleep, another should improve wakefulness, and the third should have no obvious effects at all. The answers will be somewhere in those books. You may use water in your creations, but otherwise you may not use anything except what I have given you." 

Stiles picked up the first of the books and checked the title. It was a text of herb lore, which seemed a useful starting point. Another was a book of common potions, which Stiles felt was too obvious. He wondered if Deaton expected him to spend all his time reading through this book. He suspected that he would not have all the ingredients necessary for most of the potions in here, but that might be a lesson in itself. As with the ritual, it might be that much of the potion recipe was not required. Two books explored the theory of magic, another was a history of myths and folktales, and the final one appeared to be a text on geology. 

Stiles considered his options. It would take him far more time than he had to read all the books. He was better off starting with the ingredients he had and figuring out what they did and working from there. He picked up the nearest jar, noted the name of its contents down on his slate, and then picked up the herb lore book to find its properties. 

He had only found three of his ingredients by the time the servants arrived with trays of food. Stiles knew his time was limited so he took his bowl of stew and lump of bread and sat back down at his work table, eating with one hand and flicking through pages with the other. 

"Do not get gravy on my books, boy," Deaton said sternly, but he didn't prevent Stiles from working while he ate. Deaton had a few words with one of the servants while Stiles hunted down herb number four. There was a lot of information in the book and it wasn't in any order that was easy to search. The author had grouped the herbs into categories based on their growth. So plants that lived only for a year were in a different category to plants that lived for many years, and flowering plants were separated from leafy plants, and so on. It probably made sense to the author but was little use to Stiles who was searching by nothing but a name. He had to flick through each section of the book to check whether the plant was listed in that one. 

After finding plant number six, Stiles picked up the potions book to give himself something different to do before his mind turned to mush and dribbled out of his ears. The potions were even worse than the herbs. At least the author of the herb book had attempted to impose some order. The potion book had one recipe listed after another with no apparent pattern. Stiles skimmed the titles and descriptions looking for anything about sleep or wakefulness, and unsure what he was supposed to look for when it came to a potion that had no effect. 

He found a sleeping potion, but as he'd expected, he didn't have most of the ingredients in the collection Deaton had given to him. He made a note of the page number and decided that he would have to look up its ingredients too and see if he could substitute in those he was allowed to use. This was going to take a lot of looking back and forth and he was already running out of room on his slate. 

Stiles ran a hand over his eyes and then up his face onto the top of his head. His was beginning to feel an ache behind his eyes at the prospect of all the work he had to do, all the tedious checking that would be required. He wondered what would happen if he failed this test of Deaton's. Would he get fed to the wolf. 

"I think you have had enough for tonight," Deaton said. "You can continue your exercise tomorrow." Stiles looked up and only then realised how dark the room had become. A new fire burned cheerfully and there were candles all about, but there was no light coming in through the windows. No wonder he had been getting a headache, trying to read in this light. Stiles made sure that he had noted down the page numbers and then closed the books. 

Stiles asked, "Tomorrow, can I have more slate and something to use to mark the pages?" 

"I will find you something. Now, I'll show you your room." 

Stiles guessed that was what he'd talked to that servant about. Deaton took him two floors down in the tower and then opened a door into a small bedchamber. The room was neatly furnished, sparser than his room at home but not excessively so. A fire was burning in the grate and there was the handle of a warming pan sticking out between the soft coverings on the bed. Someone had set a jug of water by a basin on the washstand. 

"Tomorrow," Deaton said, "I will talk to someone about getting you some fresh clothes, but this will do for now. I will fetch you for breakfast. Sleep well." 

Stiles was halfway to the window to inspect the view when the door closed and he heard the heavy click of a lock. He should have expected that, but still the sound caught him by surprise. For a few moments, he had forgotten that he was a prisoner here. It wasn't his choice to be Deaton's student. None of this was his choice. 

He sat down on the bed and wondered where his dad was right now, if he was alright. If he was scared for Stiles. Stiles wondered if Deaton would let him write his father a letter. He wanted to say goodbye properly and let his dad know that he wasn't dead. So far, Deaton had seemed kind enough. He might be willing to give Stiles this. 

Stiles stared out of his window at the roofs of the town below and let his mind drift to home. This place was his prison and he should never forget that. He would learn what Deaton would teach him and try to find some way to convince Lord Peter that he wasn't a threat, but his goal should always be to find a way home. He lay on the bed, softer than any he'd slept in before, and ached for his lumpy mattress and thin pillow from the house he shared with his father. He lay awake for some time before finally drifting off to sleep, thoughts of home always on his mind.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles was still in bed when Deaton came to wake him for breakfast and his day's learning. Stiles gave himself a perfunctory wash at the basin and then pulled on his travel-stained clothes. Deaton waited in the stairwell outside Stiles' room holding a bucket full of small chunks of meat. It seemed Derek would get his breakfast before Stiles would. 

They went back up to the top of the tower and that securely-shut door. Deaton gave Stiles the bucket to hold when he unbarred and unbolted everything. It seemed a great deal of effort to keep out a wolf who didn't have hands to operate a latch anyway. 

"Why does Lord Peter keep a wolf up here?" Stiles asked. 

"His is the house of the wolf." 

"So he needs to keep a real wolf around as some sort of mascot?" 

Deaton had opened the door by now and Stiles' words carried out into the tower-top garden to the waiting wolf, who answered them with a growl that nearly made Stiles drop the bucket. 

"Derek is not a mascot," Deaton said. "Now give him his food." 

Stiles started to set the bucket down between them so he could nudge it towards the wolf, but Deaton apparently had something else in mind. 

"Hold out a piece to him," Deaton said. Stiles really didn't want his fingers anywhere near those powerful jaws with their sharp teeth, but he took a piece of dripping meat from the bucket and held it out. His tried to keep his hand steady but his anxiety rose as the wolf padded closer. The wolf opened its mouth, revealing those sharp teeth and Stiles nearly snatched his hand away and ran. 

But the wolf closed its teeth gently on the piece of meat, avoiding Stiles' fingers. It didn't bite down on the meat until Stiles had withdrawn his hand. Stiles stared. This wasn't normal behaviour for a wolf, he was sure of it. Someone must have spent a long time carefully training it to be fed by hand. Once that bit of meat was gone, it came towards Stiles, pressing its muzzle to Stiles' hand and then opening its mouth to lick the traces of blood away with a rough tongue. Stiles almost laughed at the tickling sensation, and at his confusion. This was no ordinary wolf. Stiles was almost tempted to pet its ears like an affectionate dog. 

Deaton didn't require Stiles to hand feed the wolf every piece. Once the first bit of meat was eaten, Derek buried his head in the bucket and gobbled down the rest. Deaton and Stiles simply had to wait so that they could take the bucket downstairs when it was empty. 

On the way downstairs, Stiles asked, "Who trained that wolf? You?" 

"No one trained Derek," Deaton answered. 

"So a wolf just naturally decided it was OK with being hand fed?" 

"There is nothing natural about Derek's condition." 

Stiles nearly tripped on his own feet. He reached out to brace himself against the stone walls of the staircase to keep from tumbling down to his death. No wonder the wolf had seemed so strange. Derek had seemed to understand what they said to each other and he'd been far too tame for an animal. Something was going on that wasn't natural, and that meant something magical. No wonder Deaton was the one who had the task of taking care of the wolf. 

"Is it a spell?" Stiles asked. "A curse?" 

"You are on your second day of training," Deaton said. "I don't think you are ready to discuss curses yet." 

They reached Deaton's workroom and went inside. Deaton let Stiles wash his hands in a basin before they settled down to the breakfast that had been brought up for them. Stiles tucked hungrily into the lumps of buttered bread and the bowl of porridge that was still steaming despite the cold of the castle and the fact it had been sitting here while they were up on top of the tower. Deaton brewed them a cup of tea and then told Stiles to get on with his task. 

The work was just as tedious as it had been the previous day. Stiles began well enough, continuing his hunt for the herbs in the book and noting down his findings on the new slates Deaton had provided, but he quickly tired of that exercise. He wondered about the other books. Four of them, he had barely glanced at but Deaton must have given them to him for a reason. Stiles picked up the one of myths and folklore, relieved to find that it had a table of contents. He skimmed over titles of chapters. Each chapter contained a story or two along with an analysis by the author of the potential origins of the tale and if there might be any truth to the superstitions. Stiles saw that one of the stories was a legend about a princess in an enchanted sleep and he quickly flicked to the indicated page. 

The summary of the story was dry and told in a very dull way, and the mention of the potions for sleeping and waking were just allusions with no detail, but the analysis did speculate as to the potential ingredients. As with the recipe book, Stiles didn't have the items mentioned as being potentially part of the spell to induce an enchanted sleep, but he did have the two ingredients that the author mentioned as forming the base of a tea known to increase alertness and wakefulness for a short period of time. So buried in a book of fairytales, in a story about someone being enchanted to sleep, he found the answer to the potion for staying awake. 

Stiles noted down those two herbs and made a plan to brew a tea in the small pan when it came nearer to the time for Deaton to check his findings. 

He continued like that through most of the day, checking his items against the herb book until he couldn't cope with the boredom anymore and then flipping to the other books to give himself a short break in the hope of finding something useful. He found a reference in one of the magical theory books, much to his surprise. There was a section on achieving the necessary focus for magic and how this could be a challenge under stressful situations. The author advised a potion meant to induce calm and even included detailed instructions for making it, but there was a side note about needing to be careful of the ratios because too high a quantity of one herb could change the potion from one that induced calm to one that induced sleep. 

Stiles checked his array of herbs and grinned. He was only missing one ingredient and he recognised it from his frequent searches through the herb book. According to the herb lore book, it was often used to disguise the taste of potions or remove bitterness. The herb lore book suggested alternatives when it couldn't be found and Stiles had one of those. 

He left the book open to the instructions and began brewing his potion, pleased to be doing something other than flipping through books. He worked carefully, checking each step as he went, and took his pan and ingredients over to the fire to brew the potion. Across the room, Deaton was writing something but he looked up as Stiles began to move about. 

"How are you progressing?" Deaton asked. 

"I've worked out two of the three," Stiles said. He'd hoped Deaton would be impressed, but it was difficult to read any reaction on his face. Stiles bent back to his work. 

He brewed the sleeping potion, with double the recommended amount of the herb the book had said to be careful of. He then made the wakefulness tea. There were no instructions for this one, so Stiles just put a pinch of each herb in the pan and let them seep in hot water for a few minutes. He then wondered what he ought to do about the potion to do nothing. He considered using the herb he'd used to flavour the sleeping potion, but he couldn't be sure that would have no effect. He frowned at his third jar for a minute before inspiration hit. He filled that jar with a grin before turning to Deaton. 

"I've finished." 

There might have been a trace of surprise on Deaton's face. He stood and walked over to Stiles' work table and looked at the jars. He sniffed at the sleeping potion and asked Stiles what he'd used. He gave a nod and set the jar down. He lifted the second and Stiles explained that one. He lifted up the third, frowning at the clear liquid within it. 

"It's water," Stiles said. Deaton gave him a questioning look. "You wanted a potion that did nothing. I don't know all the potential side effects these might have," he gestured at the collection of jars, "or if you have an allergy. I went with what I could be sure of, but you've given me mint, so I could brew you a mint tea if you really want." 

Deaton actually smiled at that. Stiles hadn't been sure this would work, but it seemed Deaton at least wasn't angry with him for ruining this lesson. 

"So," Stiles said, "did I get the right answer?" 

"The interesting thing about a challenge like this," Deaton answered, "is that there is not just one right answer." He picked up one of the theory books Stiles had hardly touched. "This book has a chapter on misconceptions and how many people believe in magic and folk remedies that have no real effect. You could have found several answers to the third potion in here. If you had carried on looking up each herb in here," he touched the herb lore book, "you might have been able to devise potions for all three. There is often more than one right way to solve a puzzle."

"I could also have handed you one of those theory books as a sleeping potion," Stiles said. "They could send a person to sleep." 

Deaton smiled a little at that comment. 

"So what do you learn from this lesson?" he asked. 

"That whoever wrote these books didn't consider a way to make it easy for people to find specific information in them," Stiles said. "Only two of them had tables of contents. Have you got some magic spell that lets you say what you're looking for and have the book turn to the right page?" 

Deaton actually laughed at little at that comment. "When you have spent some years studying the craft, perhaps you could devise one." 

Years? That word, said in a light tone, struck Stiles again with the realisation of his situation. He didn't know how long he would be in this castle and if Lord Peter would ever decide he was allowed to leave. He might be a prisoner here for the rest of his life. 

"Could I send a letter to my dad?" Stiles asked. 

Deaton seemed taken aback by this change in conversation topic, but he agreed and even fetched Stiles pen, ink, and paper to write it. 

"I will have to talk to Lord Peter about sending it. I doubt he will want to send a messenger out specifically for this purpose, but if one of his riders is travelling near your home, perhaps they could make a detour to deliver it." 

"Thank you," Stiles said. 

Deaton left Stiles alone in the room to write the letter and Stiles stared at the sheet of blank paper for a long while, wondering how much he should say. There was a very strong chance that someone would read this letter before it reached his dad, and perhaps make a decision about whether it ever would based on its contents. So Stiles kept his letter short and spoke of the generosity of Lord Peter in letting him study from his own sorcerer. He said that he was in good health and that he was sure he would learn a lot here. He told his dad he loved him. That would have to be enough. 

Stiles folded the paper shut and addressed it to his father, ready to be delivered. He didn't have any wax to seal it with and he doubted that would deter anyone, so he left it as it was. He just had to hope that the message would get through and that it would be enough to keep his father from doing anything foolish. 

Deaton returned, followed by a small cluster of servants. Some carried in food for their dinner, but there was also an older woman who was apparently here to measure Stiles for a set of clothes. Stiles stood in the middle of Deaton's workroom while she held a tape measure up to his limbs and wrapped it around him in more places than he was sure was strictly necessary. She announced that she had some shirts and pants and other basics that would be suitable for day to day wear, and that she would have something made specifically for him in case he was expected to attend formal occasions in the great hall. Stiles doubted he would get invited to great feasts or minstrel shows or anything of the sort, but he didn't argue. It wasn't like he would be paying for these clothes. He thanked her and then sat down to the roast chicken that had been left ready for him. He should have included in the letter that he was being well fed. That would have helped reassure his dad.


	6. Chapter 6

The next few days fell into a pattern. Deaton would wake Stiles and then they would go to feed Derek together. Afterwards, they would have their own breakfast and then Deaton would set Stiles some task or exercise that usually involved looking up a lot of information in his books. Sometimes Stiles was asked to classify a list of spells by type or to look at three versions of a ritual and identify which one would work. Deaton spent little time going over either the information required or the answers, but busied himself with his own books or papers, or brewing potions of serious complexity. They would have a light meal at midday while they worked and then a larger dinner later, all these meals taken together in that tower room. 

When it became too dark to work, Deaton would take Stiles back to his bedroom and lock him inside. Stiles would find each day that someone had made the bed, emptied the chamber pot, and otherwise tidied up the room, but the only other people he saw were the servants who brought their meals and they didn't stop to talk. Even with Deaton spending most of the day sitting half a room from him, Stiles felt incredibly lonely. 

He also became increasingly frustrated with his life between stone walls. Back home, he would spend his days in his garden, or roving in the woods, or foraging for mushrooms and wild berries. He would burn off energy in games with the other villagers or chopping firewood or performing chores around the house. Now he spent almost every waking minute sitting with books. He felt like he had an itch beneath his skin and he wanted to move. He wanted freedom to run and stretch his legs or just stare up at an open sky. He wanted a conversation that lasted more than two minutes. 

He wanted his dad. 

He had been at Wolf Heart castle for a week when Deaton declared that he was ready to take Derek his meals alone. A few days ago, Stiles would have been scared at the prospect of being alone with the wolf, but Stiles was longing for some company that wasn't Deaton and right now even a wolf seemed an improvement. So Stiles took the bucket of meat up to the top of the tower without arguing. He opened the door at the top and walked out into the roof garden, careful to shut the door behind him. 

Derek padded out from between the trees. He looked between Stiles and the closed door, somehow managing to look quizzical despite his wolf features. 

"Just me today," Stiles said. "I guess Deaton is doing important sorcery stuff today. Not that I actually know what he does most of the time." 

He set the bucket down for Derek to nuzzle his head into and watched the wolf eat. It still seemed a strange place to imprison a wolf. Yes, it was outside and, yes, the plants made it feel more like being somewhere wild, but it was hardly the habitat for a wild creature. 

"You must get really frustrated being trapped in here," Stiles said. "Nowhere to run. No animals to hunt. Nothing to do all day but sulk around between your plants. I know that feeling. The past few days I've been trapped behind stone, unable to run or really move. It feels like I have a well of energy inside me that's just building up, like when you put a lid on a boiling pot and the pressure just builds until it pushes the lid off and sends your soup bubbling into the fire. I'm not used to sitting still all day and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to stand it." 

Stiles wasn't sure why he was telling all this to a wolf, probably because he didn't have anyone else to talk to. He could hardly confide in Deaton with these feelings and there was no one else in his life right now. Derek lifted his head from the bucket, looking at Stiles in a serious way as though he were considering Stiles' words. 

He lunged at Stiles. 

Stiles gave a yelp of fear and leapt backwards before tripping over his own feet and landing hard on his ass. He brought up his arms to offer some small protection, but Derek stopped short, never even touching him. In fact, Derek gave out a huff of breath that sounded almost like laughter. 

Stiles tried to get his racing heart under control and stared at the wolf. Derek lunged towards him again and then backed off, staring at him expectantly the whole time. Stiles couldn't understand this behaviour from an adult wolf but he might have expected it from a small puppy. 

"Do you want to play?" Stiles asked. "Is that what you're doing?" 

Derek made another of those lunging and backing off movements as if in answer. Stiles pushed himself back to his feet. The next time Derek lunged at him, he dodged sideways and then ducked round a planter. Derek ran at him again and again Stiles dodged away, ducking and weaving between plant pots to keep Derek from having a straight path. 

It was obvious Derek wasn't trying very hard to catch him. It was like when Stiles had seen mothers pretending to play chase with toddlers who had barely learned to run. Derek was playing with Stiles, keeping his hunt to a level where Stiles was not really in danger of being caught but causing enough exertion to leave Stiles breathless. Stiles found himself grinning at the exercise, at moving and using his body in a way he hadn't for days. He wasn't sure how long Derek chased him through that garden but he felt alive in a way he hadn't since his flight with his father. He might have laughed if he had the breath to do so. 

Then Derek leapt at him again, this time pushing up hard with his paws to jump right over a long pot with a low bush in it. Stiles tried to change direction to deal with this unexpected move and ended up tangling his feet together. He was hit full in the chest by a mountain of fur and flesh, knocked to the ground. All air was pushed from his lungs in a gasp of surprise and pain but the wolf was still on top of him, pinning him down. 

Stiles tried to wrestle his way free, pushing and straining with his muscles but the wolf was too large and too strong. Derek brought his head down close to Stiles' baring his teeth above his throat as though to say that he could have killed Stiles easily, if he'd wanted to. But the shining blue eyes that met Stiles' didn't have death in them. 

"Derek!" Deaton's voice rang across the tower garden. "Derek, stop." 

A strange wind blew, sending planters spinning away to the sides and lifting Derek off Stiles, flinging him to the stone floor of the tower. He landed with a whimper of pain. 

"Deaton, I'm OK," Stiles said. He realised what this must have looked like. Deaton must have come looking for him when he took so long over the feeding, and then Deaton had found Derek pinning him, teeth almost at his throat. Derek's muzzle was still smeared with blood from his half-eaten breakfast and it was no wonder that Deaton feared the worst. 

Derek gave a growl in Deaton's direction, but Stiles hurried to stand, wanting to stop Deaton before he used any more magic. 

"I'm fine," Stiles insisted. "We were playing. He didn't hurt me." 

"Playing?" Deaton echoed. He said it like it was a word in a foreign language, something beyond comprehension. 

"I made a comment about how it must be frustrating for him to be trapped up here with no way to get exercise and I said I knew that feeling and then he... he started playing chase." 

Deaton stared at Derek in amazement. Derek responded by giving another growl. 

"Finish your breakfast," Deaton told Derek. The two glared at each other for a surprising length of time before Derek padded over to the bucket and ate the rest of his meat. Between mouthfuls, he continued glaring at Deaton. 

Stiles took the bucket and followed Deaton back through the tower door, but he paused at the doorway to give Derek a little wave. It seemed silly to wave to a wolf, but Derek was obviously much more than a wolf. 

As they walked down the stairs, Deaton made a point of asking Stiles it he had any injuries. 

"Maybe a couple of bruises from falling over, but that was as much to do with my clumsiness as Derek." 

"This is... different for him," Deaton said. 

"Is different good or bad?" Stiles asked. 

"I'm not sure yet." 

Back in the workroom, Deaton handed Stiles a pile of books and told him to identify the country of origin of ten different spells and to work out which one had been mistranslated. Given that several of the books were in different languages, Stiles wasn't even sure how he was to begin with this exercise. He stared at pages of incomprehensible symbols and wondered if Deaton was punishing him for some reason. 

***

Two days after the chasing incident, Deaton surprised Stiles by taking him out of the workroom as soon as their breakfast was finished. Stiles wondered if this would be another test like the growth spell in the garden, but instead Deaton took him to a training yard. A group of men and women in guard's uniforms were sparring with each other. Stiles recognised one of them. Scott, the guard who'd been one of the two to capture him, was in the middle of a wrestling match with a young man who had a mess of blond curls. When Scott saw Deaton and Stiles approach, he broke off his match, clasping hands with his opponent and then hurrying over. 

"Good morning, sir," he said to Deaton and then flashed a smile in Stiles' direction. 

"Good morning, Scott," Deaton replied. "Stiles here has expressed frustration at sitting and reading all day and would like some exercise. I would like you to exhaust him." 

"Yes, sir," Scott said. 

Deaton walked away and left Stiles in Scott's hands. Scott took Stiles into the courtyard and had him raise his arms for a fight. 

"Have you had any training in combat?" Scott asked. 

"No. Not unless you count getting beaten up by the other kids in my village." 

"Probably not, though that might have taught you how to take a punch." 

Scott started offering advice on how Stiles stood and how he held his arms. There seemed to be an awful lot of thought into what to Stiles had seemed like a simple matter of hitting each other. Scott demonstrated a few basic blocking moves and then punched Stiles slowly, letting him block each attack. After a few minutes of that, they shifted to something that slightly resembled a fight, with each throwing punches at each other and blocking in their turn. Scott was obviously moving slowly enough to avoid any risk of hurting Stiles. In that way, it was like playing chase with Derek. 

It seemed that their sparring match was just a warm up. Once they had punched back and forth enough to build up a bit of a sweat, Scott called a halt to the activity and asked Stiles whether he wanted to practice with a long sword or short. 

"Is there much difference?" Stiles asked. 

Nearby, Boyd had been practicing with staves with the blond boy. He was clearly listening to Stiles' conversation with Scott because he gave an amused snort at the comment. 

"Long swords are a rich man's weapon," he said, not slowing down the rain of blows he was exchanging with the blond. 

"He's essentially right," Scott said. "When guards or soldiers fight, we fight in formation so we use short swords and shields. That way, we don't get in each others' way. When knights fight in duals or tourney matches, it's just them and their opponent, so they use a long sword and they move around a lot more." 

"I didn't realise that there was any difference between swords." 

"Oh, there's a lot of differences, and a lot of different types of swords. The Lady Kira fights with a curved blade. With that, the fighting style is more around slicing motions than thrusts. It's also lighter than a longsword which allows her to be a lot more agile when she fights." 

There was a slightly dreamy look on Scott's face as he spoke, smiling faintly as he spoke of this Lady Kira. Stiles was just surprised that a lady was allowed to fight at all. Back in the village, men and women all worked because it was necessary to survival, but he had always thought that the noble ladies were expected to sit around and do embroidery. He wondered if Lady Kira was an exception to the norm or if there were large numbers of fighting women in the higher class. 

Scott didn't actually let Stiles touch a sword that morning. Instead, he fetched a lump of wood that hung on a short length of chain. Scott demonstrated a series of motions that set the lump of wood to swinging. Then he handed the block over to Stiles to repeat the pattern. Stiles grunted a little in surprise at the weight and attempted the motions, nearly whacking himself on the shins as the wood swung around. He swung the block up again and this time it kept moving at the end of the swing and smacked into his side. 

"What's the point of this thing?" Stiles asked. "Other than torture?" 

"It builds up strength and control in your muscles," Scott answered. 

"Why can't I practice this with an actual sword?" An actual sword was less likely to splatter his brains on the courtyard when he mistimed a movement. 

"This helps you find a rhythm," Scott said. He had Stiles start again. This time, Stiles tried to make the series of thrusts and parry motions a flowing sequence instead of a series of separate movements, and he found the block of wood was less likely to swing dangerously into his body, but he felt like every motion was being dragged back by the momentum of the wood. 

His arm started aching almost at once, but Scott just gave him a grin and told him to keep practicing. Scott went to spar with Boyd, taking up a pair of swords that were longer than most of the sparring pairs were using. They raised the swords and set at each other with blazing speed, thrusting and blocking, striking and parrying, their feet dodging about until they seemed to be almost dancing. 

Stiles lowered his arm and let the block of wood hang as he watched them, more interested in their practice than practicing the tedious and potentially painful exercises he'd been set. Unfortunately, his stillness drew attention. A man strode over to Stiles and looked at him with a sneering expression. It was that expression, more than the embroidered tunic that marked him out as someone of high rank. 

"Are you meant to be standing around being lazy?" he asked. Before waiting for an answer, the man turned to the sparring pair, "And you should put that sword down, Boyd. You know there's no point you practicing with a long blade when you are never going to be more than a guard." 

Scott and Boyd stopped their sparring, turning to acknowledge this new person. They both muttered a quiet, "Yes, sir." 

Boyd gave a short bow and then turned away to place the sword he'd been using back in the rack of weapons at the edge of the courtyard. The man ignored him as soon as he had left. He looked at Scott, giving him a once-over before saying, "I suppose you'll do for a sparring partner." 

He drew the sword that he had sheathed at his side and the light glinted on the jewels at the hilt. 

"Yes, sir," Scott said, raising his own sword. 

Stiles resumed the exercises Scott had set him, but he kept half an eye on the sparring map going on in front of him. It seemed to him that Scott wasn't moving quite as quickly or striking quite so hard as when he'd been sparring with Boyd. It was possible of course that Scott was just tiring, but Stiles suspected that he was going a little easy on this guy because he didn't want to be the one who caused harm to a noble. 

Stiles was almost glad when Deaton arrived to take him back up to the workroom. He was glad to have had some exercise, but after the sedentary days, this activity was something his body was unused to. He went back up the stairs to the tower with his arm and shoulder aching massively.


	7. Chapter 7

Stiles was in the middle of reading a tedious chapter on energy currents that flowed through the world when there came a knock on the door of Deaton's workroom. A uniformed page entered and crossed to Deaton, whispering something to him. Deaton glanced at Stiles and then dismissed the page. 

"Go to your room," Deaton said, "and change into the nice tunic you were given." 

"Why?" Stiles asked. 

"You are needed downstairs and you should look your best." 

That seemed to be all the answer that was forthcoming, so Stiles went down to his bedroom and found the tunic that had been tailored for him. He clearly wasn't going to be having another exercise session if Deaton wanted him to wear this one. It wasn't as nice as some of the clothes the nobles wore, like that guy who had been so dismissive of Boyd in the training courtyard, but it was of a fine fabric with some decorative stitching around the hem and collar. It was certainly a more expensive garment than anything he'd owned back in the village. Stiles tucked awkwardly at the hem, trying to get it to sit straight, feeling like he was wearing a costume. 

Deaton had followed him down the stairs and waited outside the bedroom door to escort him. Stiles decided to try again to get answers. 

"So what's going on downstairs?" he asked. 

"Lord Peter has summoned you. All you need do is answer." 

"Why would he summon me?" Stiles tried to think back over everything he might have done wrong. Was Lord Peter upset that Deaton had attacked the wolf because of him? Had that noble asshole said that he was seen standing around the training courtyard not doing anything? Had Deaton decided he wasn't making enough progress with magic and that he wasn't worth the cost of feeding him? Stiles wondered if the fancy tunic was to make it look like too much money had been spent on him already. Maybe Lord Peter had simply decided that keeping Stiles alive was too much of a risk, especially if he was grasping magic. All these thoughts and possibilities rushed through his head, but none of them seemed reassuring. 

Stiles made up his mind to be perfectly respectful and show all due deference to Peter in hopes of getting out of this alive. 

Deaton led Stiles back to that intimidating hall in which Stiles had faced Lord Peter the first time, past the guards who stood at attention in the doorway. The room was as Stiles remembered it, large and intimidating, with the huge wolf carving glaring down at him, but his attention was drawn to the man standing before Peter's throne. 

"Dad?" 

All Stiles' resolve to show deference to Peter vanished and he broke into a run across the hall, throwing his arms around his father. His dad hugged him back just as tightly, squeezing him close. Stiles didn't know what his dad was doing here but for that moment, he didn't care. 

"As you can see, Mr Stilinski," Lord Peter said from his seat, "your son is perfectly well." 

Stiles' dad released the hug and stepped back so he could look Stiles up and down, taking in the rich tunic but studying each area of exposed skin, no doubt looking for signs of bruising or injury. The scrapes around his wrists from the ropes were healed now, thanks to Deaton's treatment, and Stiles' dad seemed mostly satisfied with what he saw. 

Still he asked, "Have they hurt you?" 

"I'm fine," Stiles said. He was aware that Peter could still give the order to have him hauled off and executed if he said the wrong thing. "They've given me food and clothes and a comfortable bed, and Deaton is instructing me how to use my magic better so I don't cause any more accidents." 

Stiles' dad turned to Peter. "What will happen to him when he finishes learning?" 

"Then I would expect him to repay my generosity by using his skills in service of my house." 

"Meaning you'd want to use him as an indentured worker for the rest of his life. A slave." 

"He would have a position of honour in my court," Lord Peter said. 

"Honour is no substitute for freedom," Stiles' dad said. He positioned himself between Stiles and Lord Peter, still glaring. 

Peter smiled at them, his expression hard and cold. "There are many lands in which the rulers would not be so generous. There are many groups who believe that those with magical gifts are too dangerous to be left alive. A free magic worker running wild through my lands is a threat to the people I am duty-bound to protect. It would be like leaving an army of assassins roaming the countryside." 

"My son is not an assassin!" 

"He could be. He could use his powers to do a great deal of damage if I let him go. I suppose I could remove the threat by preventing him from casting any more spells. I could let you take your son away from here today, but first I would have to chop off his hands and cut out his tongue. Would you prefer that?" Peter was still smiling. 

Stiles thought his dad might launch himself across the hall and try to throttle Peter with his bare hands. 

"Stiles is not a threat!" 

"I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with that. How many communities would allow a magic worker to live among them with no assurances? Most would want to kill him just to be safe, or blame him the first time they suffer an accident or bad harvest. Here, your son will have food and safety and purpose. He will have a better life than any you could have offered him." There was derisiveness in his tone that reminded Stiles of the asshole in the training courtyard and how he'd dismissed Boyd. Stiles wondered if they were related. 

"You know that Stiles isn't a danger to you or anyone else," Stiles' dad said, "but you will pretend otherwise so that you have an excuse to trap him here and use him for your own selfish purposes. I won't let you do that." 

He took a step towards Peter and Stiles became instantly aware of the tension around them. There were guards on duty by the doors, as well as squires and pages standing in attendance. That wasn't even counting Deaton, who stood behind them, watching this scene unfold. Stiles felt suddenly vulnerable. 

Peter fixed Stiles' dad with a hard stare. "You have spoken quite enough," he said, "and you have clearly never been taught manners. You have addressed me with no regard for my rank. If you say one more word to me, I will have you flogged. I give you this last chance to simply walk away. Either way, your son will remain in my castle under my... protection." 

"Go to hell!" Stiles' dad spat. 

Peter raised his hand in a signal and then there was a rush a movement. Deaton uttered a word of magic and threw something, a thin length of cord that grew in the air to a thick rope that wrapped around Stiles' dad like a coiling snake. Stiles' dad tried to react, tried to dodge, but the loops of rope were already tight around him and he fell, hitting the ground hard, the ropes still pulling tighter around his body, tying his legs and pinning his arms to his side. 

"Stop it!" Stiles yelled at Deaton, but by then two of the guards had hurried forward, swords drawn. 

Stiles dropped to his knees beside his dad, reaching out to tug on the ropes, but they remained firmly in place even without knots. 

Lord Peter ignored Stiles and addressed his guards: "Take this man out to the courtyard and see that he is appropriately punished for his inappropriate behaviour." 

"Don't touch him!" Stiles yelled, trying to put himself between his dad and the guards, despite their weapons. 

"Stiles," Deaton said gently, stepping forward to place a hand on Stiles' shoulder to urge him back. Stiles spun and aimed a punch at Deaton's face. 

His hand stopped short an inch before making contact and it was like Stiles had hit a burning rock. Pain flared through his hand and up his arm, hot and sharp. He cried out in pain and heard his dad yell his name. 

"Stiles," Deaton said again, tone just as gentle, "calm down. You can't stop this." 

"Bastard! Don't you touch him." 

Stiles yanked himself out of Deaton's grip, clutching his sore hand. He wasn't sure if he'd broken it, was even less sure how he could have broken it given that he hadn't actually hit anything. 

The two guards still stood over Stiles' dad. They hadn't reached down to grab him, instead eyeing Stiles warily, watching him for another outburst. Launching himself at them would probably end just as badly as attacking Deaton, but Stiles wasn't going to just stand here and let them beat his dad. Stiles flung himself at the nearest guard, launching his shoulder into the man's chest, only to have the man step aside, twisting his body so that Stiles' momentum carried him past him. Stiles hit the ground hard, landing on top of his already hurt hand. 

Before he could get to his feet, another of the guards had hurried over to take hold of Stiles' arms. The guard hauled him upright but then held him firmly, keeping him from any further attempts to fight for his dad. 

"Stiles, stop," said the familiar voice right behind him. The guard holding him was Scott. "You're not going to help him." 

The grip he held on Stiles wasn't cruel but it was strong enough that Stiles wasn't going to be able to pull free. Stiles could only watch as the other guards picked up his dad and carried him from the hall. Deaton looked back at Stiles. 

"You don't need to see this," Deaton said. Then to Scott, "Take him to his bedroom and make sure he doesn't do anything foolish."


	8. Chapter 8

"I hate you," Stiles said, as Scott marched him back up the tower stairs. Somewhere below him, his dad was being flogged for daring to argue with Peter Hale. 

"I tried to keep your father out of this," Scott said. 

"You know my dad didn't do anything wrong and you helped Peter anyway." 

"Peter Hale is my lord. I'm sworn to his service." 

"And that means you don't care when he gives an order that's wrong." Stiles said wanted to try punching him, but he already knew from his time in the training courtyard that he wouldn't land it. Besides, his hand was still hurting. 

"I care," Scott said, "but I'm honour-bound to obey him." 

"Even when he threatens to cut off my hands and has my dad flogged?" 

"I swore an oath." 

There wasn't much Stiles could say to that, so he settled for saying, "I hate you," again. 

He reached the door to his bedroom but he kept on up the stairs of the tower. Scott hesitated. 

"Isn't this..." he began. Stiles kept climbing the stairs and Scott hurried after him. "What are you doing?" 

"Going to spend time with someone who isn't an accomplice to evil." Stiles marched on past the door to Deaton's workroom. 

"I don't think you're supposed to go up there," Scott said, but he didn't attempt to drag Stiles back down. 

"I go up here every day," Stiles answered. He reached the heavy door at the top of the stairs and started work on the bolts. 

"I was told to take you to your room," Scott said. 

"So knock me out and drag me back if you're going to because that's the only way you're getting me in there." 

"You're just going to get in more trouble." 

"I'm a prisoner, my father is being beaten as we speak, and your lord has just threatened to either kill me or mutilate me. How much more trouble do you think I can be in?" 

Stiles lifted the wood bar from its slots and opened the door. He walked out onto the tower's roof, into the strange garden it contained. It was strange to think that he'd been so scared of being up here at first. Right now, he was scared of everything else in this castle, but he trusted the wolf more than the lot of them combined. 

"Stiles," Scott sound very scared, "we shouldn't be up here. It's dangerous." 

He grabbed hold of Stiles' arm and tried to tow him back towards the door. There was a growl from the gardens. Scott made a fearful noise and his hand tightened around Stiles' arm, fingers digging in painfully. Derek reacted by deepening his growl and now it was loud enough to reverberate on the stones. 

"You should let go of me," Stiles said, "or I won't be the one losing my hand." 

The black wolf crept out from the garden, those piercing blue eyes fixed on Scott as he growled. The wolf bared his fangs. 

"You should probably go," Stiles told Scott. As angry as he was right now, he didn't want to watch Scott get ripped to shreds by a wolf. 

"I can't leave you up here with this monster," Scott said. He drew his sword, aiming the length of steel at the wolf. 

"Derek's less of a monster than that lord you follow." 

Derek stopped growling long enough for his eyes to flick to Stiles and go up briefly. If the wolf had been a person, Stiles would have though he was rolling his eyes at Stiles. The movement was over in a moment and then Derek was back to growling at Scott. 

"Derek's not going to hurt me," Stiles continued. He wasn't sure why he was so certain of that, but he was. "You should leave. All your lord wanted was for you to keep me from running away or interfering with him beating my dad, and you've done that. You can shut me up here just as well as in my bedroom." 

Stiles reached for Scott's hand and pried it from his arm. 

"You can't be serious about this," Scott said. He tried to move between Stiles and Derek, but that just made Derek take a step forward, snarling. Stiles side-stepped away from Scott and now it was Derek's turn to move between them. Derek started herding Scott towards the door. Despite the sword in his hand, Scott wasn't actually attempting to fight the wolf. Stiles wasn't sure what the residents of this castle knew about the wolf on the top of the tower, but Scott had known to be afraid, which meant he knew something. Was he scared of the fact that the wolf had magic about him? Or was he scared because he knew his lord was keeping this wolf alive deliberately so he didn't want to risk injuring him? 

"You should probably leave," Stiles said. "I don't think Derek likes you." 

"Why are you doing this?" Scott asked. 

"Because right now, Derek's the only living creature in this castle who I don't hate." Stiles made a shooing gesture towards the door. All the while Derek kept his mouth open in a snarl and his eyes locked on Scott, moving slowly and forcing him towards the door. When Scott's back hit the wood, Stiles knew he'd won. 

Scott retreated through the door, but Stiles wasn't sure what he would do next. He might wait outside the door to come to Stiles' rescue if any mauling happened, or he might stand guard there in place of the bedroom. Or, and this was the possibility Stiles was worried about, he might go to Deaton and tell him what had happened. 

Stiles retreated into the garden, not wanting to be seen as soon as Deaton or anyone else showed up on here. Stiles walked around the central turret that housed the stairway until he was on the opposite site from the door and then he found shelter inside a circle made of miniature fruit trees in marble tubs. He sat down on the ground and hugged his knees to his chest, trying to feel something other than utter despair. 

Derek padded between two of the trees and regarded him solemnly. 

"My dad came to rescue me," Stiles said, because there was no one else he could confide in, "and he was rude to Lord Peter about the fact he's basically holding me prisoner, and Lord Peter ordered that he be beaten for being rude. I couldn't do anything to stop it and Deaton... Deaton helped!" Stiles was angry about a great deal that was going on here, but that felt like a betrayal. "Deaton used magic to tie my dad up so he couldn't fight back and then Scott grabbed me so I couldn't do anything. Even the people who seem nice around here are evil. Lord Peter said that the only way he's ever going to let me leave here is if he mutilates me and then he had my dad beaten for being upset about that. Lord Peter has to know he's in the wrong but he doesn't care and everyone else just helps him even though they have to know he's evil too. I hate them. I hate them all." 

The wolf came up to Stiles and placed his head on Stiles' knees. It was clearly meant as a comforting gesture. He wished the wolf could talk, wished he could say something to offer comfort or advice. Stiles just wanted some sign he wasn't completely alone here. 

"I want to kill Peter," Stiles said, his words a quiet whisper, barely louder than a thought, but the wolf's head lifted. Derek looked Stiles in the eye and shook his head. Stiles could have sworn it looked afraid. The wolf might not be able to speak but there could be no doubt that it understood what Stiles had just said. 

"I know," Stiles said. "I know I can't do it. I don't have any weapons and my magic is pathetic and I've barely learned anything from Deaton. It's not like I could charge down there and kill him with all his guards around him. But I can still want to do it." 

Derek's solemn eyes were still staring at him and this time the wolf nodded slowly. He curled up on the ground beside him and pressed his warm fur against Stiles. 

"You want to kill him too, don't you?" Stiles asked. The wolf was just as much a prisoner here as Stiles was, and had been for a much longer stretch of time. At least Stiles got books and Deaton to talk to and exercise in the training courtyard with the guards. The wolf just had this tower, with nothing to look forward to but daily meals. 

Stiles felt the wolf's head move against his legs in another nod. 

"We'll find a way," Stiles said, burying his hands in the wolf's fur. "I'll search Deaton's books for something we can use and we'll find a way. I promise." 

Derek made a low, rumbling growl, but this time it sounded like agreement.


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles wasn't sure how long he huddled on that tower with Derek beside him, but eventually he heard the sound of Deaton's voice calling his name. Stiles didn't answer, didn't want to make anything easier for this man. He stayed where he was, running his hands over Derek's soft fur. Deaton called his name a few more times, moving through the garden, before he appeared outside the ring of fruit trees and looked down at him. Derek gave a warning growl. 

"I have tended your father's injuries," Deaton said. 

"Injuries you helped give him." 

"I have made arrangements for him to be taken out of the castle and the city with no further harm." 

"He's not going to give up," Stiles said. He knew his dad would keep coming back for him, keep trying to help him. And Peter would probably keep hurting him. 

"Stiles, this wasn't my choice." 

"You used your magic against him." Stiles knew he had to have Deaton's help if he wanted to learn enough magic to fight back against Peter, but he couldn't bring him to even act like he'd forgiven the man. 

"Have you ever played chess, Stiles?" 

Stiles wasn't sure where this change in subject had come from, but he shook his head. 

"Ah, then this metaphor is perhaps going to be lost on you, but when you play chess, sometimes you must sacrifice a piece for the sake of the game." 

"I'm not sacrificing my dad," Stiles snarled. 

"I didn't mean literally. I simply meant that sometimes it's necessary to let your opponent win something so that you can remain in the game and have a chance to win later. You have to think of the larger strategy, look beyond the immediate move to plan for the ones to come." 

"My opponent in this metaphor being Lord Peter? You're saying I should let Peter win about my dad, let him get away with having him flogged, for what? So I can stay here for the rest of my life and do magic to help Peter? Like you did? I'm not going to do magic for him that's the sort of thing he wants it used for." 

"I am sworn into the service of the Hale house," Deaton said, "bound to offer my magic to the lord who sits and rules in Wolf Heart castle. Right now, that lord is Peter." 

"So you don't care if he's evil because you're promised to serve him anyway." Stiles thought about how Scott had acted, how he'd seemed sorry but how he'd followed orders anyway, as though the honour of keeping a promise was somehow more important than doing the right thing. Stiles would rather do the right thing and to hell with honour, but it seemed like he might be alone in that viewpoint. 

"I will serve Lord Peter because I must, until his death or until someone comes along who has a better claim on that title than he does." 

Derek answered that with a growl. Stiles was sure he was missing something important, judging from the wolf's reaction. 

"I may have magic," Deaton said, "but Lord Peter has other power. He has the force of politics, his armies, his money, as well as experience that you cannot dream of when it comes to schemes and plots. If you were to simply set yourself against him, you would die, but not quickly and not first. Lord Peter would make sure your father would die as retribution. Depending on how much of a nuisance you make of yourself, Lord Peter might take it upon himself to kill Scott or the others you have dealt with, claiming that they conspired with you. Only when you understand the full weight of your failure, only then would Lord Peter kill you." 

"But if you know how evil he is, why can't you use your magic to stop him?" 

"I told you, my magic is bound to the service of my lord. I can't use it against him. Not directly." Deaton offered a small, knowing smile. "As I said, not until someone comes along with a better claim to the title than him." 

Derek pulled away from Stiles' side, growling. For a moment, Stiles thought the wolf might leap at Deaton and tear his throat out. Deaton looked down at him, unimpressed by the anger or the snarling teeth being aimed at him. 

"I am stating facts, Derek, and it still remains a possibility." 

"What remains a possibility?" Stiles asked. 

"Just as I am bound not to use my magic against Lord Peter directly, I am bound not to reveal his secrets. I cannot answer that question." 

Despite his words, Deaton didn't seem to feel so strongly about dropping hints. Stiles did his best to piece together what he knew. With all his talk of chess and opponents, it appeared that Deaton considered Peter an enemy, or at least an adversary. He couldn't, or wouldn't directly fight Peter, but with all his hints, he was implying that he could consider some other strategy, or find someone who could take the title from him. But why had Derek become so angry about that? Why was that the thing that had set him off? 

"Come back to my workroom," Deaton said. "Let us continue your lessons." 

Stiles wanted to be stubborn. He wanted to insist he wasn't going to leave this tower, wasn't going to cooperate anymore, but it was obvious that he couldn't help himself or his dad or anyone by cutting himself off from knowledge that might be useful. 

"No more silly exercises," Stiles said. "No more flipping through books to find an obscure reference to a potion that does nothing. I want you to teach me magic I can use against Peter." 

The fact that Deaton didn't instantly refuse said something important. Deaton considered the demand. 

"I will still teach you the foundations of magic," Deaton said. "Knowing a few individual spells is a very inefficient way to study magic and will leave you with little flexibility, but perhaps some of the examples can be a little more... focused." 

"And I want to be able to write to my dad." 

"That may be more difficult. Appeasing Lord Peter will take time and he will not want to spend resources on the messages of people who have already defied him." 

Stiles glared up at Deaton. "You can find a way to let me communicate with my father, with or without Peter's knowledge, or you will find you have the most inattentive student in the world." 

"It may take some creativity," Deaton said. 

Stiles didn't move. "That doesn't sound like a yes." 

"Very well. I will find a way to let you communicate with your father. Now, will you return to your studies?" 

Stiles nodded. 

***

Stiles still had to learn the basics, as Deaton had promised, being given exercises to identify the differences between magic of conjuring and transmutation, vivamancy and necromancy, and all the different branches. At first it seemed simple: creating something from nothing was conjuring but turning something into something else was transmutation. The more he studied though, the vaguer it seemed to get. The first example Deaton gave was the growth spell Stiles had used in the garden, which was clearly a vivamancy spell because it influenced the growth of a living thing, but it also involved aspects of conjuring because it involved creating new matter for the plant to turn into new leaves and flowers. The words of the spell were in fact another language, not just something to be learned by wrote for each new spell. Each word invoked a type of magic, with its grammar and tone adding more specifics. A competent sorcerer could string together these words into a new sentence that would be a new spell as long as they had enough focus on the meaning behind those words. 

A great sorcerer, according to Deaton, could leave out all but the most vital of the words and still get the correct effect by holding the meaning in their mind as they cast. That was how Deaton had performed the fire spell on Stiles' first day. He had used the word that invoked the element of fire and ignored all the appeals to conjuring and elementism that Stiles had needed. 

A truly great sorcerer, Deaton explained, could cast the spells without any words at all, as long as they had enough power and were intent enough on the spell. 

To be a sorcerer, Stiles learned, a person needed both the power and the knowledge, but the more a person had of one, the less they needed of the other. Someone with minimal power would have to be precise in the forming of their spells, with every word, every grammatical shift, every intonation and pronunciation perfectly accurate to describe what it was they wished the spell to do. But someone with a great deal of power could be sloppy, their magic allowing their will to overrule any mistakes in the language. 

"But," Deaton said, "the fact that you have some power is no excuse for sloppiness. The time may come when you need to perform a particularly complex piece of magic, and then you will need both." 

Most of Stiles' lessons were largely theoretical, with Deaton giving Stiles written out spells and having him study the language to identify what the spells were for based on the words and how they were rearranged, the endings that had been applied. Deaton would make this more challenging by throwing in a few filler words that were pure nonsense just to trip him up. He claimed that there were people who sold spells, and many of them would lengthen basic spells in just this way because the people buying them would think the spell more worth the money if it were four lines long instead of four words. Stiles poured over the books, trying to separate real magic from nothing, learning to spot the common magical terms by repetition. 

But Deaton did let him practice real spells occasionally. One morning, he spent hours identifying the purpose of three similar spells, eventually deciding that one was to create an identical copy of an object, one was to turn the object to gold, and one was to create a copy that was identical in shape but made of gold. Stiles had identified the spell words from the false ones, or so he hoped, and he handed his slate over to Deaton to check. Deaton gave a simple nod and handed the slate back, before saying, "Test them." 

Deaton handed Stiles a stub of chalk that was getting difficult to write with to use as his target. Stiles closed his eyes, focused on his desire and did his best to clear his mind of distractions. He uttered the words of the spell, for the first time understanding exactly what it was he was saying, using those words to shape the picture in his thoughts. The stub of chalk rested on his left hand, and then there was a stub on each hand. Stiles grinned that he'd actually made it work, until Deaton peered at the two chalk stubs and said, "Nearly." 

Stiles wasn't sure what he meant at first. When he looked at the stubs, they were like mirrors of each other, utterly identical. And then Stiles realised that was the problem: they were mirror images. Instead of being matched, the second stub was a reverse of the first. He looked up at Deaton. 

"What did I do wrong?" Stiles asked. 

Deaton touched a word on the slate. "'Arisso' here does mean copy, but also reflection. You left out 'en'. It means alike. In this context, it means that the copy should be like the first, not a mirror." 

"But in the spells you gave me yesterday, 'en' was all over the place to give the lines the same number of syllables and make the rhythm sound nice." 

Deaton smiled. "A word may be meaningless in one spell but crucial in another. Fix the other spells." 

Stiles stared at his slate. The transformation to gold spell shouldn't be changed, but he inserted the missing word into his third spell and then looked for Deaton's approval. 

"You'll find out when you do the spells," Deaton said. So Stiles did them. He transformed one lump of chalk into a piece of gold, a little lump of shiny metal about as long as a knuckle on his little finger. The copied lump, he made a matching copy, not a mirror this time, but made of gold. He held these two little nuggets in his hands and wondered what he father would be able to do with these. Stiles stared at the gold, considering. 

"These won't fade away, will they?" he said. "They're not like fairy gold that vanishes at dawn?" 

"They are real and solid. Once something is made or transformed by magic, it is fixed, unless someone performs magic to undo the spell, but undoings are a surprisingly complicated piece of magic because you have to understand exactly what was done in the first place." 

"So the gold's real?" 

"The gold is definitely real." 

"Can I send it to my father?" 

Deaton seemed surprised by the question. He considered it a moment then said, "You will have to find someone you trust not to steal it on the journey."


	10. Chapter 10

Finding someone he trusted would be a challenge, especially since Stiles had already decided not to trust anyone in Wolf Heart castle, not even Deaton. His list of possible candidates was slim though, and he would probably have to go with whoever he mistrusted least. 

He had another training session in the courtyard, practicing sword work with Scott, Boyd and the others. He'd learned the curly-haired boy's name was Isaac and that the rich asshole was Jackson, son of Lord Whitmore. There were others, some of whom exchanged a few words with Stiles, but most of the older guards left Stiles to the ones his own age. After one session of trading sword blows with Scott, Stiles was left with an aching arm but a faint hope that Scott might be willing to help him. 

Scott had been extremely apologetic about Stiles' father, and about abandoning Stiles up on the tower with Derek. Stiles didn't mind the latter one, but if he could use Scott's guilt to his own advantage, he would. After training, Scott walked Stiles back to Deaton's tower and Stiles brought up the subject. 

"I want to send my father something, a gift to let him know that I'm OK, but I can't really ask Lord Peter to send it. Not after last time. Would you be able to see that it gets to him?" 

Scott considered. "I could take it into the city and hire a messenger for you." 

"Would it be safe with a messenger?" 

"I'm sure it would," Scott said, but his tone was less confident than his words. 

"Could you take it?" 

"Not without abandoning my duty. It's too far for me to ride on my day off." He thought some more about the situation. "I can't give it to one of Lord Peter's messengers. As soon as someone asked about their mission, word would get back to Lord Peter. I think you will have to trust a hired messenger." 

If Stiles was to send lumps of gold, he didn't particularly want to trust a stranger, even one who was paid to carry packages and messages around. He knew that messengers couldn't stay in business if word got around about things missing from their packages, but even so they might be tempted if Stiles was smuggling lumps of gold. If nothing else, a messenger might be willing to gossip about such a rich package being sent out to a poor village. 

"Can you ask around?" Stiles asked. "Find the one with the best reputation?" 

"That might get expensive." Scott sounded doubtful, and Stiles realised that it was because he was expecting to pay for this. He'd said he would hire a messenger and he'd meant not just that we would act as a go-between, but that he'd pay the fee as well. Stiles wasn't quite ready to reveal that he could make gold out of thin air, but he didn't want Scott fretting too much about paying for this on guard's wages when he could be hiring the best messenger available. 

"I can talk to Deaton," Stiles said. "He owes me something for all this." 

He would also talk to Deaton about concealing the truth about the package. They'd reached the door to the workroom and Scott said goodbye. He said he would stop by the following day for the package. In the tower room, Stiles discussed options with Deaton, along with his concerns about someone stealing the gold. Deaton smile and took Stiles up to the garden on top of the tower, to the flower he had helped grow during his test. There he explained his plan. 

***

When Scott arrived the following day to collect the package, Stiles handed him a box that contained a cutting of the flower along with a letter. In the letter, Stiles explained that he'd used magic on the flower, using the spell mother had taught him for growing carrots. Hopefully that mistake would alert his father to the fact that there was a hidden message. In the letter, he advised his father to replant the flower in the garden, but to be careful of its roots and to check them before he planted to make sure there were no stones in them. 

The rest of the letter was perfectly ordinary, with Stiles expressing his sorrow about how the previous meeting had gone, telling his father he missed him, and offering some excitement about the magic he was learning. There were no more hidden meanings, just the words he wished he could say to his father in person, telling him to be safe, advising him not to anger Lord Peter further. If the messenger was dishonest and looked at the letter, they would see nothing incriminating. The only way they would find anything out of place would be if they removed the flower from its pot and found the pieces of gold hidden in the roots. 

Stiles had practiced the transformation and copying spells some more, to make sure he had a fine gift to send his father, working in the quiet of his bedroom the night before. He used tiny pieces of twig taken from the garden and found the spells surprisingly more challenging with these than he had with the chalk. Perhaps it was because the twigs had once been alive, or because they were not uniform in substance as the chalk had been. Stiles had to pour more focus into the spell to get them to work, and after he had performed the spell to make a gold copy half a dozen times, he had a pounding headache and felt thoroughly exhausted. 

He had to be shaken from his bed by Deaton to make sure he had time to finish the gift in to give to Scott. Deaton took one look at him, and then at the little pile of gold twigs he'd created, and he gave a sigh. He helped Stiles up to the workroom to finish the potting of the flower, burying most of the gold in the roots, but leaving some out to be payment for the messenger. 

Stiles didn't tell Scott that he'd been the one to make the gold, just let him think that Deaton had provided it. Stiles didn't want to acknowledge this spell in case Lord Peter decided that Stiles should spend his days filling his treasury. Stiles wasn't sure he could handle making any more gold. He could barely manage to make it up to the tower garden to give Derek his breakfast. 

Derek gave Stiles a concerned whine when he saw him and then growled at Deaton. 

"Don't growl at me," Deaton said. "He did this to himself. Creating something from nothing takes energy and that energy has to come from somewhere" 

Stiles spent the rest of the day feeling exhausted, but Deaton didn't let him off his studies. They just switched to purely theoretical lessons and Deaton talked about stores of magical energy. He described it as being like a cup of water, with a trickle slowly pouring into it. Each spell took magic out of the cup which was gradually replenished, but too many spells all at once emptied the cup, leading to the deep tiredness Stiles was currently suffering from. 

"There are ways to store some of that energy," Deaton said, "in charms and talismans, focal points, and the like. That's why many wizards carry staffs. The staff acts as a second cup. You can take magic from your own supply and gradually feed it into this other source while you are not doing other spells, and then if you are in an emergency, you have more magic to call on. This same technique lets you create objects of magic, where the spell is bound to the physical object with a store of magic to power it." 

"So does that means charms and stuff run out of power?" 

"Precisely. A protection charm uses no magic to just exist, but if it is used to make a wearer alert to danger, or to slow a physical attack, then that uses some of its store of magic. Eventually, the magic is gone and the charm becomes a simple object again, of no value except for decoration. More spells would be required to restore it to potency." 

They talked along these lines for most of the morning. Apparently Stiles could grow his personal cup of magic through practice, but every magic worker had limits. They also returned to their discussion of power versus knowledge. A more precise spell required less energy than a sloppy one. Deaton used that as a way to shift the lesson back to teaching Stiles the vocabulary and grammar of the language of magic. 

By the time they ate lunch, Stiles' head was spinning from trying to remember all the terms and the way the endings of words shifted depending on whether they were describing the spell or its target. He felt that he would never learn all these, never learn enough to be able to cast spells he hadn't written down and researched beforehand. 

"How long did it take you to learn all this?" Stiles asked. 

"I started learning magic when I was five," Deaton said. When Stiles gaped, he continued, "The most skilled magical practitioners learn from birth. Children are much more adept than adults at learning languages, and that is the same skillset that magic requires. The earlier you start to learn, the more and the more easily you will learn." 

Stiles remembered Deaton's comments when he'd first arrived, about how Deaton could have made him a great sorcerer if he'd been brought to him a decade earlier. Stiles stared at books of conjugation and wondered if it was too late for him to learn all of this.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be at Nine World, a sci-fi convention in London, for a few days from tomorrow so there may be a bit of a delay before I update either of my WIPs. I doubt I'll have any time to write over the weekend. 
> 
> My second note is that I tried to come up with a term of magic of destroying, as a contrast to conjuring as a magic of creation. I decided to use abjuration as an opposite to conjuration - since the prefixes ab and con can have opposite meanings. I was only after I wrote this bit that I realised that D&D and I think Magic the Gathering use abjuration to mean something different. In this context, it means using magic to destroy something.

Stiles' most recent lesson was on sympathetic magic. He was to use his power to create a link between two objects so that what happened to one had an effect on the other. The more similar the objects, the easier the link was to form. Deaton started him linking two twigs from the same tree so that when he snapped one, the other would snap in half. When Stiles had practiced that a few times, they talked about the theoretical enhancements of this spell. Stiles suspected that Deaton was trying to avoid having him drain himself too much again, and the twigs had been difficult enough. 

The easiest way to take the spell further would be to link the twig to the branch it had come from, so that breaking the twig, which was a simple enough task, would break the branch itself, something that would normally require an axe. 

Deaton nodded. "The easiest link is between items that are already connected. The twig and the tree it came from is one level, but to connect the twig and the branch of another tree would take more effort." 

"Is this how blood magic works?" Stiles asked. "The blood was a piece of the person so it can be used to control the person." 

"The same principal, yes. The same with hair. If you have some of a person's hair, you can use that to create the sympathetic link. You can combine physical objects to make the link stronger, perhaps linking blood to a picture or a carving of that person to give yourself multiple links, in the same way that a strong rope is woven together from multiple thin threads." 

Stiles thought of using blood to link a twig to a person's body. A magic user could use a spell like this to snap a person's leg like a twig, if they had enough power and a few drops of blood. Much as he would love to snap Peter's bones, Stiles felt uncomfortable at the implications of all he was learning. 

"Isn't this... dark magic?" he asked. 

"Magic is magic," Deaton said. "There is nothing inherently bad or good about any of it, except how it is used. A sword could be used to slaughter an innocent person or to save a child from a wild animal. It's still the same weapon. The gold you created could give your father a better life and put food on his table, or it could be used to hire assassins. The magic is a tool and it doesn't care if it is being used for good or evil." 

But it seemed Deaton decided to shift the lesson onto subjects that were less easily used for death and violence, talking about how sympathetic magic could be used to save. If a link was created between a burning piece of wood and a burning building, then quenching the fire on the piece of wood could quench the fires on the building. Stiles couldn't help thinking though of the implications of blood magic, and how it could be a powerful weapon in the right hands. He'd wanted a way to fight Peter. It seemed perhaps that Deaton was giving it to him. 

***

It was more than a week between Stiles sending out his flower and receiving a response. Scott came to Deaton's workroom to ask if Stiles wanted exercise again, but as Stiles walked out of the room, Scott slipped a folded piece of paper into his hand. Stiles made the excuse of wanting to change into another shirt for the exercise to stop in his bedroom and take a quick look at the letter. 

The letter was short enough. His father thanked him for the gift and said that he had replanted it into the garden as instructed, and that he had taken note of Stiles' instructions. Stiles took that to mean that he had found the gold. He said that he was well and that his injuries had been minor and that Stiles wasn't to fret about him. It finished with a message of love and a promise that he was still looking into options from Stiles’ future. 

Stiles floated down to the training courtyard with a grin on his face that even two hours of being whacked on the ribs with a blunted training sword didn't diminish. Stiles thanked Scott for his part in transferring the letters and Stiles decided to take the response of, "Any time," literally. When he went back up to Deaton's workroom, he was already thinking of his next message. 

"Could I create a sympathetic link between two slates," he asked, "so that what gets written on one shows up on the other?" 

Deaton smiled. "It's not as simple as a sympathetic link, because what you need to copy is the chalk rather than the slate, but it is possible." He hunted his shelves for a book and then handed it to Stiles. "Page two hundred and seventy-three, I believe." 

Stiles shouldn't have been surprised that he wasn't the first to think of linking two sets of writing implements together, but he wondered why Deaton hadn't suggested this sooner. Deaton had promised, after all, to help him with communicating with his dad. If Deaton already knew that this method existed, why hadn't he mentioned it when Stiles had sent the flower? Unless he had wanted Stiles to come up with his own plan, but in that case why not say so? 

Stiles found the page in question and saw the complexity of the spell in question, and wondered if Deaton had simply been waiting until Stiles was ready to understand it. There were multiple layers to the spell, with the sympathetic link that needed to work in both directions, rather than one slate representing the other. There was a conjuration element, so that the chalk written on one would be conjured on the other. Then there was an abjuration piece, which was a subject Deaton had barely mentioned in their lessons, which allowed for the words erased from one to be erased from the other. The copying spell was buried in there, the phrases familiar from his exercises with the gold, but woven in with all these other enchantments. Then both slates would need to be infused with a store of magic so that the spell would last when Stiles stopped casting it. Deaton had been teaching him most of these elements in isolation, but the spell brought them all together into a single piece of magic Stiles was fairly confident he wasn't ready for. 

He had driven himself to exhaustion trying to do one tiny piece of this magic, albeit a dozen times. Trying to hold all this together in his focus and providing the power for it would be far beyond what he was capable of at the moment. 

"I'm going to need a much larger cup," Stiles said, remembering the metaphor of magic stores. 

"Let's start there," Deaton said. "I will teach you to create a store of magic you can use in a larger spell."


	12. Chapter 12

Sitting at one of the tables in Deaton's workroom, Stiles felt more exhausted than he'd ever been in his life. He should have anticipated that creating a magical store of energy would involve using up a lot of his own energy, but he hadn't quite anticipated how much it would affect him. He felt weak and his limbs trembled and he thought he might faint if he even thought about standing up from his seat. He suspected that this would continue for weeks to come. 

He needed to store enough magic so that he would be able to create the slate spell and still have enough magic to infuse the slates with power so that the spell lasted over time. He wanted to ask why Deaton couldn't help with providing the magical energy, but didn't quite dare. Either Deaton wanted to make sure Stiles had this as a full learning experience, or he actually couldn't help Stiles. Deaton had talked about his magic being bound to Lord Peter. If he couldn't use magic against Peter, maybe he couldn't use magic directly to help Stiles with communicating with his father, given how much they both hated the man. 

Stiles' store of magic was a lump of wood taken from the supply by the fire. He had marked it with magical symbols, nearly slicing his hand open in the process, as he cast the spell, binding his magic to the wood. For the following three days, he had spent about an hour focusing on the wood, speaking the words to transfer power and letting his energy drain into it. After he was done with that, all he wanted was to crawl back into bed and sleep until Deaton woke him to feed Derek the next morning. Unfortunately, Deaton had other ideas, forcing Stiles to stay awake and read books on energy currents and how to channel energy from natural sources to supplement his own magic. 

"Why aren't we doing this?" Stiles asked, after reading a chapter about performing rituals on points of intersection between flowing currents of energy that travelled beneath the ground. According to the book, a magic worker could tap into power far greater than their own and right now Stiles would have appreciated any energy source to prevent this constant draining of his own ability. 

"Two reasons," said Deaton, not looking up from where he was grinding and bottling various dried herbs. "Firstly, you have barely learned to control your own power. It would be extremely dangerous to give you access to power beyond your limits. Secondly, we wish to increase your personal capabilities of magic. Pushing your limits repeatedly is a way of increasing those limits over time. A man who lifts heavy weights on a regular basis will build muscles over time so that the weights which seemed unmanageable at first become easy." 

"So I need to feel absolutely horrific for a long time in order to become good at magic?" Stiles asked. 

"Competent," Deaton corrected. "You would have had to have begun this training process before you started entering manhood to be good." 

"Ugh." Stiles slumped down over the work table. When he next spoke, his words came out slightly muffled by the fact his mouth was pressed against the wood. "Why am I even putting myself through this if I'm never going to be good?" 

"Because competent can still help a lot of people. Competent can still help you and your father. Think what you've already given him when you are not even mediocre." 

Stiles groaned again, but Deaton did have a point. He'd sent his dad a flower pot full of gold with the level of magic he had already. If he could grow his abilities, his dad would never have to worry about money again. He could hand out gold to starving children and change their lives forever. He could reshape the world and make sure that nice people got rewarded, and one of these books must say something about curses so he could punish those who deserved it. He gave another groan and pushed himself back to a sitting position. 

"You might not be able to cast further spells today," Deaton said, "but you can work on your theoretical knowledge." He handed Stiles a trio of books to add to the collection already on his table. "Find at least two different methods for identifying what spell has been cast on an object." 

Stiles could at least give his brain a break from the currents book and read one of the others. Some of the books were better than others, but he was left with the feeling after all the ones he'd read so far that sorcerers seemed to think a piece of writing was only valid if it was written in the most tedious manner possible. This information should have been interesting, and he ought to have been thrilled to learn it, but in his tired state he found it incredibly difficult to focus on the words on the page and get their meaning to sink into his mind. 

And so the days continued, with Deaton dragging Stiles out of bed to feed Derek, Stiles working on the magic store, and then trying to stay awake for the rest of the day while he poured over Deaton's books. Every three or four days, Deaton would give him a welcome break from the exercise of charging up his magic store and instead send him down to the courtyard with Scott to exercise his body. Time passed in this pattern and Stiles was surprised when he saw snow flurries outside his window one morning and he realised just how long he'd been here. He'd been in Wolf Heart castle for weeks now, weeks since he'd seen his dad, weeks even since he'd sent the letter and the flower. His dad must be worried about him, worried by the lack of news. He determined to ask Deaton about the next step of the slate project. Surely he'd gathered enough magic by now to make it work. 

Stiles went up alone to feed Derek, and found the black wolf trying to take shelter under one of the bare fruit trees, but the potted trees were too small for them to provide much shelter and Derek had to shake snow from his dark fur. He hurried over to Stiles to eat and Stiles thought about how unfair it was for a wolf to be trapped on this tower in weather like this. The wind blew bitterly, and none of the plants, not even the central turret, seemed to do anything to slow it. Stiles was shivering in moments. Derek had his fur, but this still couldn't be comfortable for the wolf. 

Stiles picked up the empty bucket and went to the doorway, then hesitated. 

"Come along," he said, opening the door and holding it open for Derek. He didn't doubt that the wolf understood what he was doing. He was quite certain now that Derek understood human speech and human actions. If Derek was someone under a curse, or even if he was just a magically intelligent animal, it would be cruel to leave him up here in the cold while everyone else was warm below. 

"Just don't," Stiles said, "you know, bite anyone or anything. And don't run off and get me into trouble." 

Derek gave a nod and then slipped through the door, brushing against Stiles' legs as he passed. Derek made it down the stairs without any difficulty and he seemed already to know the way to Deaton's workroom. Deaton was eating his breakfast at one of the tables and he took in the sight of Derek at Stiles' side with no obvious sign of surprise. Stiles had expected Deaton to be angry, especially given how careful he was about locking the tower door, but the sorcerer made no comment as Derek went to the fireplace and curled up in front of its warm blaze. 

"I think I'm ready to try the spell on the slates," Stiles said. 

"Do you?" 

"I have weeks’ worth of energy stored." 

"This is not just about the amount of energy stored," Deaton said, "it's about the complexity of the spell. You are not ready for this yet." 

"Then you make the enchanted slates! I just want to be able to talk to my father. I want to let him know that I'm safe and know..." And know that he hadn't been killed trying to rescue him, know that Lord Peter hadn't locked him in a dungeon somewhere, know that the villagers hadn't cast him out to freeze in the forest for being related to someone who could cast spells. So many horrible things might have happened to his father since that last letter had arrived and Stiles had no way to know about it. 

"I can't," Deaton said, "but if you really want to try, let's start with one piece of the spell." 

Stiles already knew that the spell consisted of multiple elements woven together. Deaton wrote down the words that described a piece of the spell, the piece that would allow words written on one slate to appear on the other. Even this had multiple elements because Stiles had to link the slates and set the conjuring spell, but for this practice, it would only work while Stiles was actively casting. The spell would also only work in one direction, with words written on one slate appearing on the other, unlike for the real spell when he would want it to work both ways. Even so, he would have to hold the two elements of the spell together: creating the sympathetic link between the slates and working in the conjuring spell on the chalk. 

He closed his eyes for a moment and drew several deep breaths, trying to focus. He opened his eyes and stared at the words Deaton had written for him. He understood what they meant now and he let their meaning fill his mind, focusing his thoughts on what he needed the spell to do. He recited the words. 

Still holding onto that thought, he reached out and picked up the chalk and drew a single line down its surface. On the other slate, an identical chalk line appeared. 

Stiles let the spell drop and he gave a triumphant laugh. Over by the fire, Derek watched him with interest. Deaton was watching too, without any sign of pride or happiness that Stiles had made this work. 

"The next step," Deaton said, "is to draw magic from your store of energy to use in the casting on the spell." He indicated the words he'd written before for Stiles and said, "Try adjusting the spell to include this." 

Stiles had seen the spells for drawing energy and he'd been using the one for the reverse repeatedly. He'd also seen the whole spell written out as complete. Really, he ought to know the way to expand this spell. He could remember the words and tried to fit them together into a sentence, tried to make it so that they sounded right in his head. He wrote down an attempt. 

"Close," Deaton said. He wrote down the real answer, swapping the order of two of Stiles' words and changing the ending on another. 

"Would it have worked the way I wrote it?" Stiles asked. He remembered Deaton's example of the fire on the first day, and how he'd cast the spell with a single word. 

"Probably, if you were focusing enough and using enough power, but getting the spell right will be more efficient and more effective. If you are being attacked and in danger of your life, then you can be sloppy in your grammar, but when you have time, always be precise." 

Stiles took the rewritten words. He placed one hand on the block of wood that served as his magic store, and with the other had touched the two slates together. As before, he closed his eyes and tried to blank his mind of distracting thoughts. He took some deep breaths and thought only about what he was trying to achieve and the meanings of the words written in front of them. 

He started to speak the words. 

Heat burned through him, fire coursing along his veins, cooking him from the inside. The second half of the spell was lost as Stiles threw his head back and screamed.


	13. Chapter 13

Something cold and wet was pressed against Stiles' cheek. His whole body ached and his head throbbed but the cold thing was insistent, prodding again and again against his cheek, nudging his face. Stiles forced his eyes open and saw a wolf's head far closer to his own than was comfortable. Stiles gave a yelp of surprise. 

Derek backed off, but not far. He stood beside Stiles, staring down at him with blazing, blue eyes. 

The recent events trickled into Stiles' awareness and he remembered casting the spell, or starting to. He remembered the pain, like someone had lit a fire inside him. He must have passed out. 

Stiles raised his arms so that he could inspect them, expecting to see charred flesh, but they looked the same as they always had. Nothing was burned. 

"Take it easy," Deaton said from somewhere beyond Derek. "Your system has had quite a shock." 

"What happened?" Stiles asked. 

"The spell worked more strongly than I had anticipated." 

He came over to Stiles, holding a mug of something. He crouched down beside where Stiles lay on the floor and helped Stiles to sit up. He kept one hand behind Stiles' back to support him and offered the mug, keeping his other hand on that so that it didn't spill in Stiles' shaky grip. Stiles took a sip of the hot, bitter liquid in the mug and grimaced at the taste. 

"The slates did this?" Stiles asked, still confused. He wondered if he'd damaged his mind because Deaton's comment made no sense. 

"Not the slates," Deaton answered. "The magic. Your magic. You started the spell to draw the magic out of your store and it all came, all at once. It was rather more than your body could cope with." 

"I felt like I was burning." 

"There was too much energy inside you. In the future, we will have to amend the spell to impose a limit on the speed at which power can be drawn from a store." 

Stiles took another sip. He wasn't sure if the medicinal properties of the drink were worth the taste. 

"Why didn't you do that before?" he asked. 

"Because for most practitioners, it is unnecessary. You are... unusual." 

"Is that good or bad?" 

"I'm uncertain. Your level of innate magic is not especially high, though some of that is due to lack of use and training, but I noticed when you did the fire spell that you could channel what you do have with especially strong focus. It seems when you have your mind fully on a spell, you can pour your entire strength into it." 

Stiles was feeling less shaky now, able to sit up and hold his drink on his own. Deaton wandered away, going to put away the ingredients he'd been using to brew this potion. Derek didn't go anyway though. He sat down beside Stiles and pressed his furry body against his side. Stiles thought on Deaton's words and a memory filled him. 

"My mother," he said, "said I had two modes of being. Either I would have no focus whatsoever, or I would have so much focus that I wouldn't notice a battle going on around me. If I were trying to concentrate on dull schoolwork or tedious chores, I just... couldn't. But if I were doing something that interested me, I might get so focused on it that I would forget to eat or not notice that I needed to relieve myself." 

"It seems you bring that nature to your magic," Deaton said. "It could be a great asset to you, allowing you to wield stronger spells than another of your ability would be capable of, but you will use up your magic far quicker than most. We may need to find a way to impose a limit on your spells." 

He went to the shelves and started hunting through the books. Stiles drank his tea and absently reached out to pet Derek. 

"Were you worried about me?" Stiles asked the wolf. Derek turn his head away, pretending indifference, as though to say that he hadn't been worried in the slightest, but he remained pressed against Stiles' side. 

"I guess I'm not practicing that spell again today," Stiles said. 

"Nor tomorrow either," Deaton said. "You used up all the magic in your store. You will need to replenish it again before you can practice drawing energy out of it for the spell." 

"I think this time I won't charge it up quite so much." 

"Probably a wise precaution." 

***

The next day, Deaton gave Stiles a break from magical practice to help him recover, but that meant instead that Stiles had to go down to the training courtyard to practice his sword work with Scott and the other guards. As they walked down the tower stairs together, Scott asked, "Some of the maids were saying that they heard screaming coming from up in the tower. Are you alright?" 

"I'm fine." When Scott looked unconvinced by that, Stiles continued, "One of Deaton's lessons didn't go as planned." 

"Were you hurt?" 

"It hurt at the time, but there's no lasting injury." Stiles had checked. His body was unmarked. Even the ache that had been inside him had faded more quickly than the usual exhaustion from draining himself. Stiles wasn't looking forward to having to recharge his store of magic before trying the spell and he definitely wanted to be more careful about unleashing it, but there was something comforting about knowing he had the ability to wield that much power. If he could hurt himself like that, then there must be a way for him to hurt someone else. Like Peter. 

Scott and Stiles sparred with short swords for a while, but Stiles got the feeling that Scott was taking it easy on him. Stiles wanted to protest that he wasn't made of glass, but he didn't have much chance because the asshole noble came into the courtyard and demanded that Scott spar with him. 

"I'm sparring with Stiles right now," Scott said. 

"Him? He's not even a guard. He'd Deaton's little pet and by the looks of it, all the training in the world wouldn't make him any good. I need some with competence to spar against and you're the closest I can get around here." 

Jackson raised his sword. 

"Look, there are a lot of other people here and they all seem pretty good," Stiles said. "Why not ask one of them?" 

"Did I ask your opinion, brat?" Jackson asked. 

"We didn't ask for yours but you gave it anyway." 

Jackson stopped paying any attention to Scott, turning all his attention on Stiles. 

"You do not get to address me like that," he said. "I want you to kneel at my feet and ask forgiveness." 

Stiles was thoroughly sick of people pushing him around. It was bad enough that Peter had done it, but this uppity young noble didn't get to throw his weight around. He tried to remember the strength of the magic, to hold on to the knowledge of the power he could command, and he looked Jackson in the eye. 

"Well I want a pony and a slice of cake," Stiles said. "We don't always get what we want." 

He became very aware of Jackson's blade, the edge of which was right against his neck. Stiles tried not to look scared. He took a step back, trying to move away from the sword, and found that the courtyard wall was a lot closer than he'd noticed. He had nowhere to run. He wondered if Jackson really could get away with killing him in broad daylight in front of all these people just because Stiles had been a bit rude. 

"Sir Jackson, please," said Scott, "let him go. He's not worth it." 

"I'll let him go," Jackson said. 

"Great," said Stiles. 

"When he doesn't just ask for forgiveness. I want him to beg." 

Stiles had no intention of begging, but that sword edge was still right by his neck and the only way he could get away from it was to edge along the wall, which wasn't particularly dignified. Stiles knew he wasn't going to be able to fight his way out of this. From the guards staring at him but not moving to interfere, it was clear that no one else would come to his rescue either. Even Scott was only willing to speak up and didn't seem about to raise his weapon against Jackson. That left Stiles with only one option: to argue his way out of this. The problem was, his mouth was better at getting him into trouble than out of it. 

"I'm in this castle as Lord Peter's guest," Stiles said. "I'm sure he wouldn't be happy about you killing me all because I said his guards seemed good." 

"You insulted me," Jackson said. 

"I think you'll find I didn't. You insulted me, and you don't see me threatening anyone over it, but I didn't insult you." 

"You insulted me with your attitude. And I will not let you leave until you beg for forgiveness." 

Stiles smiled, "I am sorry that you're incapable of telling difference between a comment and an insult." 

Jackson's answer came in the form of his fist slamming into the side of Stiles' face. Jackson had hit Stiles with the back of his left fist, so the blow sent Stiles staggering away from the sharp blade instead of into it, but the blow left Stiles dazed for a moment. In that confusion as his head spun, something blurred into the courtyard. Someone gave a yell of fear and then Jackson went sprawling with a dark mass on top of him. 

Around the courtyard, guards were grabbing weapons, and Stiles recognised the shape of the wolf pinning Jackson to the stones, growling and baring his teeth. 

"Derek, stop!" Stiles shouted. 

Derek didn't let Jackson go, but he did raise his head a little, moving those sharp teeth slightly further away from Jackson's throat. Jackson groped the ground beside him for his fallen sword and Stiles could see this ending very, very badly. 

"Derek! Come here!" He kept his tone sharp and commanding, doing his best to not show the slightest trace of doubt. Derek looked at him, face seeming quizzical, like he wasn't sure why Stiles would want to let someone like Jackson live. 

"Here!" Stiles repeated, pointing to the stones by his feet. Derek tilted his head in a wolfy shrug but he obeyed, his huge paws leaving Jackson's body. He walked calmly to Stiles' side, all growls vanished. 

Jackson hurried to his feet, retrieving his sword. 

"What the hell is that?" Jackson demanded. The sword point aimed at Derek now. 

"He's a wolf," Stiles said, trying to convey how obvious he thought that answer was. 

"How do you get it to obey you?" 

"He's studying magic with Deaton," Scott put in, before Stiles could decide how much to tell them. Stiles didn't say anything. If Jackson wanted to believe he could summon a huge wolf when threatened and make Derek obey him with magic, then he was less likely to threaten him with swords again. Stiles reached down and gently petted the soft fur on Derek's head. He tried to pretend that he was calm, that he was in control of this situation and that he wasn't moments away from falling apart out of fear for his own life and Derek's. Everyone in this courtyard was heavily armed and it wouldn't take much for them to turn those weapons on Derek. If Stiles let on that he couldn't really control the wolf, then things could get very, very messy very quickly. 

"Come on, Derek," Stiles said. He handed his practice sword over to Scott as he walked past, Derek padding along beside him. Derek paused at the doorway to look back and bare his teeth at Jackson, but then he carried on calmly beside Stiles. 

"You," Stiles said, trying to gather himself, "You probably shouldn't have done that. Thank you, I mean, for coming to my rescue, but I wasn't supposed to let you off the tower roof and Jackson's bound to be angry about the dangerous wolf that tried to kill him. I should have just kissed his ass the way he wanted because now we'll both be in trouble." 

Derek gave a huff that suggested he didn’t care.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very short chapter but the cliffhanger was too evil for me to resist. 
> 
> I'm not sure when I'll be next able to do fic updates. I'm going away for a week and I don't know what the internet situation will be at the place I'm staying. So you may have to endure dangling from this cliff for a little while.

It seemed Stiles was right about the courtyard incident getting them into trouble. He was sitting in Deaton's workroom, trying to identify a sample of herbs based on the descriptions in one of the books, when Derek started growling. He'd been curled up comfortably by the fire but now he rose and positioned himself between Stiles and the door. A moment later, the door opened and Lord Peter walked into the room. 

Stiles expected Derek to launch himself at Peter's throat, but Peter stared Derek down and bared his own teeth, his human features showing a snarl as vicious as Derek could make. To Stiles' astonishment, Derek whimpered and cowered back. He stayed between Peter and Stiles, but all the aggression melted out of his posture. 

Stiles got to his feet, bowing in case that brought some mercy, but barely taking his eyes off Derek and his worrying behaviour. 

"What is he doing here?" Peter demanded of Deaton. 

Deaton looked at Derek, as though only just noticing that he was there. 

"He doesn't appear to be doing much, my lord," Deaton said. 

"He is supposed to be on top of the tower, secured, yet I have heard reports that he has been terrorising the inhabitants of this castle." 

"He didn't hurt anyone," Stiles said, before he could reconsider whether speaking up was a good idea. 

Peter fixed his glare on Stiles. 

"Did you release him?" Peter asked. 

"It was snowing," Stiles said. "He would have frozen up there. He's not doing any harm down here." 

"You do not know the harm he could do." 

"He hasn't hurt anyone," Stiles said again. He wondered if explaining that Derek had been protecting him would make things better or worse. 

Peter cast his glare back to Deaton, "You were supposed to keep him secured." 

"You also ordered me to take care of him and make sure he stayed alive. Wolves are not naturally bred to survive on high, windy towers in snow storms without any real shelter. Should I have let him freeze?" 

"You should have obeyed." Peter looked at Stiles once again, "And you will be punished for your impertinence and your disobedience." 

"No one ordered me to keep Derek locked anywhere," Stiles pointed out. 

"The locks should have been a hint. You are intelligent enough to know that you were doing something you should not do and you will be punished accordingly. The punishment your father received will be nothing in comparison." 

Derek was growling again. Peter gave him a look that was part derision, part annoyance. 

"You can be quiet," Peter said. "You are going back up on that tower." Derek didn't move. "Go!" Derek remained exactly where he was, growling at Peter, standing between Peter and Stiles. 

"Obey!" Peter said, his voice becoming more like a snarl as well. His eyes, fixed on Derek's, glowed red for a moment. Derek whimpered, his body shaking, as though he were fighting his own muscles to stay still. 

"You cannot defy me, Derek." Peter snarled again, eyes burning red once more, and this time Derek started moving. His whole body lowered, making him appear to shrink, and he slunk past Peter to the door. In the doorway, he turned back to look at Stiles, his eyes full of sorrow, and then he started to slowly climb the tower steps. 

Peter turned to Deaton, who had barely moved in this whole exchange. He had magic to fight with, but now Stiles knew that Peter had magic of his own, at least enough to control Derek somehow. With all his words about protecting his people from magic users, he was a hypocrite of the highest order. Stiles wondered what other magic Peter could wield, and whether that gave extra weight to Deaton's statements about not being able to disobey his lord. 

"Go after him," Peter said, "and make sure he is secure. Chain him this time and you are forbidden from ever removing the chain." 

"Yes, my lord," Deaton said. He headed after Derek. He too paused to look back at Stiles before he left. 

Now Stiles was alone, his potential protectors gone. Peter took his time closing the workroom door and turning the key that Deaton had left in the lock. Stiles tried to remember any spells that might be useful here, any magic he could use to defend himself, but his mind went blank. He could barely remember how to breathe. 

"You are here," Peter said, "because of my mercy. Never forget that mercy can be withdrawn." 

He went to Deaton's table and started poking about among the clutter. Stiles kept his own work table between them, casting his eyes about for anything he could use to fight. All he had were the books and the herb samples he'd been working from. He picked up a small, leafy branch with a cluster of white berries on it. He knew that mistletoe was poisonous, but it wasn't like he could jump on Peter and force the berries down his throat. He had to think of something better, some plan. He didn't need to get the spell words exactly correct, as long as he focused enough. If he could pour all his focus into a spell, it would overcome any sloppiness in his words, if only for a moment. He just needed to pick the right spell. 

Peter finally found what he was looking for on Deaton's table and turned back to Stiles holding a small, sharp knife. He gripped in gently, holding it up for Stiles to see, obviously enjoying Stiles' fear. 

"I don't want to destroy your usefulness to me," Peter said, "so I will leave your hands and mouth intact, but you don't need other parts of you. You don't need your feet to cast magic and you only need one eye to read Deaton's books." 

Stiles considered running for the door, but there was no way he could get it unlocked before Peter would be on him with that knife. There was no more time to think, just to act. Stiles threw the branch of mistletoe into the air and spoke the most critical words of the fire spell. The branch blazed into fire almost too bright to look at, the plant turning to ash in mid-air, branch, leaves and berries all becoming dust. Stiles said another word, a word Deaton had uttered in the garden to summon the wind. Stiles focused on the wind and the fire, and a sudden whirl of moving air hurled the ash into Peter's face. Into his mouth and nose. 

The whole thing took barely a second and for a moment Peter just stood there, stunned, as the ash of the burned wood and poisonous berries filled his lungs. 

Peter staggered back and collapsed to the ground. 

Stiles had a few seconds to feel pleased with himself for making the spell work, as well as horrified about the fact he might just have killed a man, before darkness closed in on his vision and he collapsed to the floor himself.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make up for being left with that cliffhanger for so long... here's a taste of Deaton's POV. :)

Stiles woke to cold stone and shackles at his wrists and ankles. He was lying on a hard floor, strewn with straw and rushes that stank of old urine. His head throbbed and his whole body was filled with exhaustion that he was beginning to recognise as the after effect of using too much magic. From the emptiness of his stomach, he guessed that he'd been down here some time. From the emptiness of his bladder, he guessed that some of the urine smell was his contribution to the cell. 

He lay for a while, breathing in the rank air and almost wishing he had one of Deaton's bitter potions to drink to take the edge of this tiredness. He contemplated the possibility of sitting up. He started mentally preparing himself for such an arduous task but he didn't move anything more than his eyes. From his position on the floor, he could see a wooden door with a small hole for a guard to look through. That small hole, despite being too small for even a skinny person to crawl through, had a couple of bars in it. It seemed beyond unnecessary, especially since Stiles didn't think he would even be able to stand right now. 

He wondered if Peter was dead. Had he killed a man? He knew he ought to feel guilty about that, ought to hate himself for that crime, but he couldn't summon the energy for such strong emotion. 

Should he even hate himself? Peter had been cruel and deceptive. He'd essentially kidnapped Stiles and had his dad beaten. He'd intended to mutilate Stiles. There were a hundred reasons why the world would be a better place without Peter in it, but taking another person's life was still wrong. Did the improvement in the world from Peter's death balance out the evil of the murder? 

Stiles was too tired to be thinking on such deep subjects. He couldn't even summon the energy to be afraid. 

He had no idea how long he lay there, drifting in between sleep and waking. When he heard people outside the door, he considered attempting to sit up but decided against it. He'd probably just faint again. A bolt slid back and the door opened. Deaton stood in the door, a steaming mug in one hand and a book in the other. There were guards behind Deaton, but no one Stiles recognised. They shut and bolted the door again once Deaton was inside. 

Deaton crouched beside Stiles and made a face of distaste as he put the mug down so he would have a hand free to help Stiles sit up. He then put the book down on Stiles' legs to avoid having it touch the dirty floor and helped Stiles drink, keeping his hand at Stiles' back to stop him falling back down again. Stiles didn't complain about the potion's taste this time, just drank it down, hoping it would stop his head spinning and take the edge off his exhaustion. 

"You're lucky," Deaton said. 

"I don't feel very lucky," Stiles said, between mouthfuls of potion. 

"The fire, being magical instead of natural, actually diminished the effects of the poison so that breathing the smoke didn't cause the same sickness that eating the leaves or berries would have done. Lord Peter will live." 

"How is that lucky?" 

"Because if you had killed the lord, you would have been executed. As it is, Lord Peter has been persuaded to show mercy." 

"He threatened to cut my eye out before I tried to poison him," Stiles said, not thinking much of Peter's idea of mercy. 

"And because of that I was able to make him see that you could be forgiven for merely defending yourself, especially since you didn't take advantage of his unconscious state to do him any further harm once you were no longer in danger." 

Stiles was about to point out that he'd been unconscious immediately after the spell so he couldn't have done any further harm, but then he thought about the guards outside the door who might be listening in. Deaton had to have been the one to find Stiles and Peter. He might have lied. He could easily have claimed that he subdued Stiles with magic and if he'd told that to Peter as well, then Peter would have no way to know that Stiles had collapsed on his own. 

"I have spoken to Lord Peter on your behalf," Deaton continued, "and convinced him that with the proper persuasion, a person of your skills would be more useful to him alive than dead." 

"What sort of persuasion?" 

"Peter knows you care about Derek, knows what you risked to protect him. It is important to Peter than Derek remains alive, but he doesn't particularly care about keeping him happy or comfortable. Right now, Derek is chained up on top of the tower and you are chained up down here. If you act against Peter, if you disobey him or disrespect him, it will be Derek who is punished for it." 

"And you won't do anything to stop it." 

"I can't." 

Stiles thought about the way Peter's eyes had turned red, the way Derek had been forced to obey. There was magic going on here, magic Stiles didn't understand yet. Deaton had probably saved his life over this, so Stiles for once decided not to argue. 

"You are still being punished," Deaton continued. "You will spend a week in this cell, but I see that as no reason for you to slack in your studies. I will provide you with books to pass the time." 

He took the now empty mug and went back to the door, calling for the guards to come and let him out. Stiles looked down at the book on his lap. It was an exploration on the subject of abjuration, the magic of destruction, magic that could remove a physical object from the world just as conjuration could create it. It was a subject Stiles would need to learn if he wanted to get the slate spell to erase words on the one slate when they were erased on the other. There wasn't a great deal of light in the cell, but there was enough for him to make out the words and it was better than sitting around worrying about what Peter might do to Derek. Stiles opened the book and started reading. 

***

Deaton returned to his workroom, considering how best to proceed. Stiles was not reacting the way he had anticipated and this was throwing his plans off. His attempt to kill Peter had come as a surprise and it had been difficult to persuade Peter not to immediately execute him. Only Stiles' potential future usefulness had stayed his hand. After all, if Stiles could knock Peter out and nearly kill him with only this short length of training, then he could be a very dangerous weapon in the future. Deaton had promised that he would ensure that Stiles' power remained contained, but Deaton knew that a single act of rebellion from Stiles could destroy everything. As it was, only Stiles' inexperience had saved him from having to swear his magic to Peter's service. Deaton had managed to convince Peter that the magical oath was beyond Stiles' current skill level, but that excuse wouldn't last long. 

The bond between Stiles and Derek had formed more quickly than Deaton had hoped and that fierce protectiveness between them was a good sign, but unfortunately that protectiveness had pitted them both against Peter. Peter still had too much power, especially when it came to Derek. 

The most obvious course of action was to keep Stiles away from Peter. He resolved not to let Stiles have any more training sessions. If Stiles couldn't leave Deaton's sight then Deaton could make sure he didn't do anything foolish. Stiles would resent it, but he probably would understand. 

At the moment, Derek was chained up in the garden at the top of the tower. Deaton had been forbidden from removing the chain but that restriction didn't bind Stiles. If he could figure out the abjuration spells and learn to destroy solid objects, he would probably be tempted to try the spell on the chain and Deaton didn't imagine Stiles would be particularly patient about the attempt. The challenge would be to stop them going straight after Peter as soon as that happened. Stiles had to break the spell first, but Deaton's oaths prevented him from simply saying that. 

Hints were not getting him far enough. Deaton went to his shelves and scanned the titles, looking for the book which recorded the history of the Hale family. It was part of a series that was always a perpetual work in progress, with each new lord commanding scribes to add their own accomplishments, or occasionally to rewrite the history added by relatives they disliked. That might contain enough clues for Stiles to work out the truth.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about leaving you with this long gap. I was away for a few days and then things go really busy with work. But I'm back now so here you have an answer that opens up a whole lot more questions.

Stiles was more bored than he'd been in his life before. Deaton brought him books and he got meals twice a day, but these diversions were barely enough to take the edge of the mind-numbing tedium of being stuck in a cell. He missed people, missed conversations. Most of all, he missed Derek. He couldn't help worrying what might have happened to the wolf, what Peter might have done to him. 

The days crawled by and Stiles read pages on each component of the slate spell, trying to master the theory of what he needed to do. One of the books Deaton brought him however was not a book of magic, but one which purported to be the history of the Hale line. Stiles tried reading it from the beginning but got annoyed at the obvious propaganda tone. Whoever had written this book was clearly trying to impress the Hales, making it sound like they'd never done a thing wrong in their lives. Stiles started skimming through the book until he got to names he recognised. 

Stiles was surprised to learn that Peter was the third child, not likely to inherit the title and lands that went with the family lineage. His sister Talia was the official heir and rose to power, presiding over her lands with a rule that was just and fair and perfect, at least according to whatever sycophant had penned this text. She had four children. Her other brother had children. According to the family tree printed at the end of one chapter, it seemed impossible that Peter would get the position he was in now. 

Then there came the fire. A fire raged inside Wolf Heart castle, in the family wing, burning too fast to be natural according to some who witnessed it. Out of the fire, only Peter, and two of Talia's children, Laura and Derek, emerged alive. Stiles stared at the page for several minutes, wondering if it was possible, if the wolf Peter held prisoner really could be the same Derek. It was clear enough that he wasn't an ordinary wolf and Deaton had dropped hints about curses and spells. Had Peter turned Derek into a wolf to seize power? 

Stiles kept reading, eager to glean whatever he could from the pages of this book. 

Laura had taken up the mantel of leadership in her mother's place, but questions remained unanswered regarding the fire. Some apparently believed that the fire had been set by their enemies, with magic to aid its rapid spread. There were accusations of treachery, since only someone within the castle's defences could have set the fire. 

_When Lady Laura's brother Derek mysteriously vanished, some folk believed that he had played a part in the fire, though Lady Laura always denied this possibility._

Stiles stared at the page, frozen in shock. 

This didn't make sense. If Derek had disappeared after the fire, how was he a wolf here now? Or if the disappearance had been a cover-up for him being turned into a wolf, then why had it happened while Laura was still in power? Wouldn't she have tried to turn him back? Perhaps this was part of the long game for Peter. He had turned Derek into a wolf so remove the only heir between him and power, and then he'd killed Laura. 

Except, according to the book, five years passed between Derek's "disappearance" and Laura's violent death. Even if Peter was behind both, it wouldn't explain the gap. And it wouldn't explain why Peter was keeping Derek alive now. Turning him into a wolf seemed like a very ineffective plot. Even if it had been necessary at the time for some convoluted reason, there was no benefit to Peter now and no one seemed to know that Derek the wolf was Derek the former heir to the title. No one would stop Peter simply killing him and then Peter wouldn't have to worry about Deaton dropping hints about curses and so on to Stiles. 

Deaton had said that it was important to Peter that Derek remain alive. Stiles was certain that Derek was Peter's nephew, but he couldn't understand the why of any of this, let alone the how. 

Presumably Deaton wanted Stiles to break the spell, or else why all the hints? But Deaton couldn't just come out and say it because of whatever magical oaths bound him. But Deaton had also said that reversing spells was harder than casting them, because he would have to understand exactly what magic was done. It wasn't like either Deaton or Peter was likely to come out and tell Stiles that, which left him stuck. He had a handful of puzzle pieces but not enough information nor enough pieces to fit them together into something that made sense. 

Stiles was still pondering all his masses of questions when Deaton arrived and told him that his stint in the cell was over. He was allowed to return to the tower, but certain privileges had been restricted. 

***

Deaton took Stiles up the tower to feed Derek and to reassure them that the other was still alive. Stiles hadn't been sure what to expect, but he found Derek lying in a miserable heap near the doorway, a metal collar around his neck and a length of chain attached to an iron ring set into the stones. Derek raised his head when he saw Stiles and whined softly. 

"I'm alright," Stiles said, hurrying to Derek's side. "Are you alright?" 

Derek nodded. Stiles suspected Derek was no more honest than he'd been in that claim but he didn't call him on it, just petted Derek's ears gently. 

"I know who you are now," Stiles said. Derek's head jerked sharply away from his hand. Derek stared at Stiles, looking almost afraid. 

"You're Derek Hale. You're Peter's nephew. Aren't you?" 

Derek looked away, but he nodded. Stiles knew that what he'd figured out from the book was accurate. Stiles still had large gaps in his understanding, He didn't expect Deaton to answer the questions, but maybe Derek would be able to give him some of the information he was missing. 

"Did Peter turn you into a wolf?" Stiles asked. 

Before Derek could react, Deaton said, "I have work to do. I'm sure you will be fine giving Derek his breakfast without me." He left almost as fast as if he'd used magic. Whatever oaths bound him, he didn't want to be here while Stiles unravelled the secrets of Wolf Heart castle. When Deaton was definitely gone, Stiles turned back to Derek and repeated his question. 

Derek started growling. Stiles should have been terrified. This wolf was huge and powerful with jaws that could snap him in two, behaving in a way that radiated aggression, but Stiles wasn't remotely afraid. He knew that Derek wouldn't hurt him. 

"Don't growl at me," Stiles said. "Just answer the question. Did Peter turn you into a wolf?" 

Stiles thought Derek was going to refuse to answer but eventually he shook his head. That wasn't entirely unexpected given that the change had happened years before Peter had taken power but it still left Stiles without a real theory as to who had been behind it. 

"Was it the same people who set the fire?" Stiles asked. 

Derek growled again, more angry this time. He was sending a definite message that he wanted Stiles to stop talking, but Stiles felt like he almost had enough pieces to solve this mystery. He just needed a few more clues and Derek was the only person likely to supply him with them. 

"Just give me a yes or a no," Stiles said. 

Derek shook his head, still growling. That destroyed another possible theory. 

"Was it your sister?" Stiles asked, since it was possible she'd been behind the spell in some way. 

Derek snarled and surged forward, as though he meant to attack Stiles. Stiles flailed backwards, falling over in his effort to move out of way, and Derek ended up on top of him, heavy paws pressing into his chest, eyes burning into Stiles', growl vibrating through the both of them. 

"I take it that's a no," Stiles said. Derek snapped at him in warning, and then stepped away. Stiles pulled himself back to a sitting position, keeping a slight distance between them now. 

"So it wasn't Peter and it wasn't an assassin and it wasn't your sister," Stiles said. "It's got to be Deaton then." 

It seemed obvious that Deaton had been the one to perform the actual magic, but most likely he'd been coerced or persuaded into it by someone else. It might still be Peter on whom the blame could finally be pinned. Except that Derek shook his head again. 

"Not Deaton?" Stiles said. Derek shook his head. Stiles frowned, thinking. "So who then?" 

Derek rolled his eyes, as if to ask how he was supposed to answer that question. Stiles considered the problem. Derek could only give yes and no answers. He couldn't just name every person in the world, so he had to narrow the list down somewhat. 

"Is is someone I met?" Stiles asked. Derek nodded. That was a start then, and it ruled out the assassins who'd set the fire. 

"Is it someone who currently lives in this castle?" Another nod. Now it was time to start ruling out groups of people. 

"Is it anyone in the guards?" Derek shook his head. Stiles hadn't really suspected Scott or Boyd was capable of doing magic to turn someone into a wolf, but still it was a relief to rule them out. 

"Is it a servant?" Stiles asked. Derek shook his head. Stiles thought, trying to remember anyone else he'd met. It wasn't like he was allowed to go out socialising. 

"Is it Lord Whitmore?" Derek shook his head with a snort of breath that might have been an expression of derision. 

"But that's ruled out everyone," Stiles said. "You said it was someone I'd met but the only other person I've met in this place is you." 

Derek nodded. 

Stiles stared at the wolf, confusion and disbelief warring inside him. Derek hadn't wanted Stiles to ask this question but now Stiles had his answer, even if he couldn't make sense of it. 

"You did this? You turned yourself into a wolf?" 

Derek nodded again.


	17. Chapter 17

Derek had done the magic that turned him into a wolf. But how? And why? And why hadn't Deaton turned him back? Stiles had been working on the assumption that Peter was behind this and that Deaton's orders and oaths prevented him from undoing the magic, but he didn't see how that could be the case if Derek had done it to himself. Unless Deaton didn't have enough details about the spell. He'd told Stiles once that undoing another person's magic was difficult because you had to understand exactly what magic had been done. Maybe Deaton didn't have enough information on the spell and, since Derek was trapped in a form that didn't allow him to speak or write, Derek could explain it to him. 

But Deaton had had years. Surely he'd had plenty of time to figure it out. Maybe Peter had brought the oath into play after the fact, ordering Deaton not to undo the spell. 

Stiles still wanted to understand why Derek had done this in the first place. In wolf form, he wouldn't be able to either speak or write the language of magic, so he wouldn't be able to turn himself back, and he must have known that before casting the spell. Unless he hadn't known what the spell really did. The magic language was complicated and if Derek hadn't studied it the way Stiles was studying it. At least, Stiles assumed that Derek had never studied magic; he would have to ask Deaton about that. Maybe Derek had thought he had a spell to do one thing and accidentally trapped himself in this form. 

It seemed that the more Stiles thought about this, the more questions he had. So much for nearly having enough pieces of the puzzle to solve it. 

He left Derek chained at the top of the tower and went back down to Deaton's workroom, still mulling it all over.

"So," he said, "I know you can't tell me about Derek so how about we discuss a completely hypothetical person - let's call him Eric. And let's say that Eric used magic to turn himself into... into a fox. Entirely hypothetically of course."

"Entirely," Deaton's agreed, clearly amused. 

"What possible reasons are there that Eric would do that?"

"Well, in your hypothetical scenario, Eric, as a fox, wouldn't be able to answer questions or explain himself to any hypothetical sorcerers who might be around, so that hypothetical sorcerer would be forced to make guesses based on the information available, without having any firm proof that their guesses were correct." 

"What guesses might be made then?" 

"One would first need to determine whether the change was accidental or deliberate. One might guess that Eric became a fox on purpose to escape from responsibilities, or because an animal form made it easier to cope with feelings of guilt, or because he felt he had to atone from some misdeed. It would be worth investigating whether there had been any recent deaths of Eric's loved ones that might inspire such feelings." 

The fire. Most of Derek's family had been killed shortly before Derek's official disappearance. Was it possible that Derek had had something to do with the fire that had killed his family? Stiles didn't want to believe it, but he couldn't easily ask him about it. It wasn't like he knew what Derek had been like as a person. 

"The alternative," Deaton continued, "is that Eric's spell was a mistake. Even with this possibility, there are two options to consider. One is that it was a simple mistake. A person with little magical training might attempt to construct a spell by reading magic books without proper understanding. Or if a person wants to do a specific spell, what would they normally do?" 

"Go to someone who knows magic and buy a spell or ask them to write one." 

Deaton nodded. "Which is the second option. Our hypothetical Eric might have gone to a person who knew magic to ask for a spell and been given the fox spell. If the former situation is true, then it might be possible to decipher the intended action of the spell based on the actual outcome, but if the latter is true then the intended spell could have been almost anything. However, you must consider who a person such as Eric might turn to if they needed magic doing. One might be able to rule out that possibility, or at least reduce the likelihood of it being true, by considering whether there was a trusted magic user around he would have turned to in such a situation who has no knowledge of the spell in question." 

Stiles tried to untangle that bit of the statement. Deaton was talking about himself, a magic user Derek would know and trust. If he'd wanted someone to write him a spell, he would have most likely gone to Deaton. Through this rambling hypothetical, Deaton was saying that this wasn't the case. Derek hadn't asked him for the spell, which meant it was most likely one of the alternative situations, with either a deliberate spell or one that had become accidentally muddled. 

"Would a skilled sorcerer," Stiles asked, "be able to identify enough clues about the spell in order to reverse it?" 

"Given enough time," Deaton said, "and opportunity for study, it would seem likely. However, a person might know how to do something but be unable to do it for unrelated reasons." 

"Unrelated reasons like a... hypothetical evil aunt, shall we say? Maybe this evil aunt decides she likes Eric as a fox because that way she gets to have the power that should have been Eric's, so she orders the loyal magic worker not to use the knowledge to undo the spell?" 

Deaton smiled. "If that were the case, then the hypothetical magic worker would be unable to confirm or deny anything." 

Stiles mulled over what he now knew. He supposed it didn't matter whether Derek had done the spell deliberately or accidentally, as long as there was a way to undo it. Deaton might not be able to do it, but his free use of the hypothetical scenario to provide very real information showed Stiles that he was as keen on passing the information to Stiles as Stiles was about hearing it. Deaton wanted Stiles to figure it all out and was being about as subtle as a brick to the face in dropping hints. 

"On an entirely unrelated topic," Stiles said, "I was wondering if you could teach me some spells about transforming people's physical forms." 

Deaton fixed him with a severe look and said, "You're not ready. Transformation of living creatures is vastly more complex than transforming a bit of chalk to gold because they need to be kept alive through the process. It requires mastery of holding together multiple levels of a spell during casting, which you are still working on, as well as detailed understanding of the complex and interconnected systems in a living being. Let's continue with the slate spell. When you have some more experience, we may move on to transformation of plants, which have the advantage of not feeling pain when you get the spell wrong." 

Stiles nodded his agreement. He was impatient to do something to help Derek, but he remembered how a simple missed syllable had created an object in a mirrored shape, and that had just been conjuring a single bit of chalk. To transform a person, he might need to think of all the innards, like organs and bones and blood, and the idea of some of those turning out backwards was not one he wanted to consider. It was no use trying to turn Derek back into a human if he killed him in the process. 

So Stiles got on with practicing using his magic store. He poured a little bit of his strength into it and then, under Deaton's careful supervision, drew it out again to use in spells. It took him several attempts to get the drawing out of power to work, partly because he kept thinking about exactly how much it had hurt the first time he'd tried to do this. There wasn't nearly as much magic in his store this time, but the memory of that pain kept resurfacing and acted as a block to his concentration. 

He managed it at last though, using the magic store to help with a simple conjuring spell which didn't require much power and so which, Deaton reassured him, shouldn't cause the burning. When he spoke the spell, Stiles felt the magic like a warmth flowing inside his body, streaming up from where his fingers touched his magic store, pooling somewhere in his guts, and then flowing out again to the target of his spell. As long as he kept it to these levels, it was like getting a warm bath from the inside out, but Deaton wanted him to practice with drawing more and less power to perform the spell, getting used to controlling the flow, before he let him try it on the slates again. 

He worked with basic conjuring, transformation, and destruction spells, until he could say the words to draw his power in his sleep, until the feel of the extra magic flowing through him was as familiar as breathing, and until Stiles was thoroughly bored of the whole exercise and eager to try the next step. 

"You should learn patience," Deaton told him one afternoon as Stiles complained about the slowness of his progress. 

"Patience?" Stiles snapped. "Derek is trapped as a wolf, I haven't had any contact with my dad in weeks, and the only way I can do anything about either of those issues is if I get the hang of complex magic. I have a ridiculous amount of stuff to learn if I’m do a spell to change Derek back and every moment I’m learning it, he suffers. I don't have time for patience." 

Deaton sighed. "Very well. If you want to take the risk, you can try the first part of the slate spell again, but not today. You will still need more of a store of magic if you are to be successful. In the meantime, I have a book on human anatomy that you might find interesting."


	18. Chapter 18

Stiles had another questioning session with Derek, sitting on top of the tower while snow fell around them. Derek hadn't been happy about it, and had started to nudge Stiles towards the door as the snow began to fall and Stiles shivered, but Stiles held his ground. 

"I'm not going inside until I get some answers," he said, "so you can either give them to me quickly or I can freeze while you sulk.” 

Derek had glared at him, but he'd relented. Through a lot more yes/no questions, Stiles found out that the transformation into a wolf hadn't been part of his plan, and that Peter's glowing eyes and ability to control him were part of the same spell, but that that hadn't been intentional either. The spell had been something to do with the assassins who'd set the fire and the death of his family. Derek had been trying to do something to go after them and get revenge, but Stiles hadn't asked the right question to figure out what that something was. Stiles also asked where Derek had got the spell and learned that Derek had borrowed some of Deaton's books and worked it out himself. So that meant there wasn't some other magic worker involved in this mess, which was a relief. 

Stiles asked outright if Deaton knew how to turn Derek back and Derek gave a little head waggle that Stiles took to mean that he wasn't sure. When asked if Peter wanted Deaton to not turn Derek back, he was a lot more definite. Peter might not have been the one to turn Derek into a wolf, but he was perfectly happy with him staying this way. 

"I'm going to find a way to turn you back," Stiles said. 

Derek looked away, shaking his head. 

"Derek, you can't seriously want to stay like this. You're a prisoner here, trapped in chains. You can't want this." Derek didn't attempt to give an answer to that one. "Do you think you deserve this or something?" 

Derek looked up at Stiles again, then he nodded. 

"Why?" Stiles asked, the word slipping out before he could find some way to turn his thoughts into a useful yes or no question. Stiles took the pieces he knew already. 

"Do you think the fire was your fault somehow?" 

Derek nodded. 

"But you weren't the one who set the fire, were you?" 

He shook his head. 

"Then it's not your fault," Stiles said, "not really." 

Derek stared at the ground. Stiles took that to mean that he didn't agree. 

"Did you plan the fire?" Stiles asked. "Conspire with someone? Ask someone to start it?" 

Derek glumly shook his head. 

"Then I can't think of any way that it could be your fault." 

Derek made a low whining noise in his throat, but that wasn't an answer Stiles could understand. He genuinely didn't understand how Derek could think it was his fault and it wasn't like Derek could explain why right now. 

"If you want to argue with me," Stiles said, "you have to let me turn you back into a human because it's the only way you'll be able to tell me your reasons. Either way, I'll be making you human again. Just as soon as I can figure out how." 

And learn enough about magic to make it work. 

Derek made another miserable whining noise and Stiles petted his head, scratching behind the ears. This wasn't going to be easy and it wasn't going to be quick. But he wanted Derek to know that he wasn't going to give up on him. 

***

Deaton spent three days going over destruction spells with Stiles, making sure he understood the theory and the vocabulary, as well as giving him some practice exercises. Stiles knew he needed this bit of magic to form a part of his slate spell, to allow wiping chalk away at one end of the connection to erase it at the other, but he got the feeling that there was more to it than that. Deaton was teaching him this for a purpose, but of course he couldn't come right out and say what that purpose was because he was Deaton. Stiles was left with the impression that Deaton was getting frustrated with him for not figuring out what he was meant to be doing with this magic. Stiles quite wanted to try using it to make Peter vanish in a puff of smoke, but he doubted that was Deaton's intended goal. 

On the morning of the fourth day, Stiles went up the tower again to give Derek his breakfast, to find that the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Snow was falling fast, with a wind that blasted icy air and threw the snow into Stiles' face in stinging shards. It was as though someone were throwing chunks of glass against his skin. Derek wasn't able to find much shelter on this tower, especially with the chain around his neck securing him to the stone. It wasn't like Stiles could bring Derek inside again, not with that chain holding him fast here. 

And then it clicked. The answer was so obvious now that he saw it. Stiles set the bucket of food down and hurried over to the huddled mass of fur that was rapidly being buried in white. Derek gave a soft growl and jerked his head towards the door, obviously telling Stiles to leave. 

"I'm going to get you out of here," Stiles said. He reached out with shaking fingers to take hold of the chain. The metal was so cold it burned and it was hard to keep his grip. Stiles' teeth were already chattering. He needed to get this done while he could still say the words. 

He didn't need to destroy the whole chain. Breaking a single link would be enough to get Derek inside and out of this nightmare of ice and wind. Stiles held a single ring of iron between his fingers and focused his attention on it, speaking the words that Deaton had been drilling him in for the last three days. The words came out shaking as badly as his fingers, but Stiles' intent was clear, his magic flowing out of him for this purpose. 

The metal was firm between his fingers and then it wasn't. There was no puff of smoke, no drifting to ash, just an emptiness where solid metal had been moments before. The rest of the chain clanged down onto the stone of the tower, except for a few links that clung to the collar around Derek's neck. Stiles could deal with those somewhere warmer. 

Stiles got to his feet, wavered slightly, but stayed upright. He hurried to the door and opened it, Derek padding after him. As soon as Stiles shut the door again, Stiles sank down to the steps and sat. The stone was freezing cold through his clothes, but already it was about a thousand times better than being out in that wind. Beside him, Derek shook some of the snow from his coat, but gently, so as not to spray Stiles, and he fixed him with a concerned look. 

"I'm fine," Stiles said. "Just give me a minute." 

He knew was Deaton said about the effort of magic. Saying the words perfectly required less effort than getting them wrong, and Stiles knew that his words had been stammering with the cold. He felt tired, not quite to the point of collapse, but not so far away that he wanted to risk fainting on the stairs. He would just rest for a moment and then he would make it down to Deaton's workroom. 

Derek gave a soft whine, still looking at him with concern. 

"I told you, I'm fine. I couldn't leave you to freeze to death up there. Even a fur coat wouldn't have done you much good. Just don't go around threatening anyone and I'm sure we'll be fine." Stiles reached out to stroke Derek's soft fur. He knew that if Peter found out he'd disobeyed the orders about keeping Derek chained on the tower then they would both be in trouble, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that. Derek had needed to be helped and he had done what was necessary. 

"Just don't get me into trouble," Stiles said. "If anyone comes into the workroom, you have to hide behind the door or something. Peter can't know I let you out, do you understand?" 

Derek gave a nod. But then he started walking down the tower steps. 

"Hey," Stiles protested, "you can't run off on me." 

He tried to push himself up to a standing position, but the world wavered around him. He grabbed hold of the walls for support and Derek turned back, giving a disapproving growl. The message was obvious: Derek didn't want Stiles to try standing. He went off down the stairs, disappearing around the curves of the winding staircase, and Stiles had to hope Derek was only going as far as Deaton. He had to trust that Derek was still trying to protect him, and that included protecting him from Peter ever finding out about this. 

Sure enough, there were footsteps on the stairs and Deaton came up to find Stiles, Derek a dark shadow behind him. Deaton hurried to Stiles' side and helped him up, draping an arm around him to make sure he didn't fall. 

"Come on," Deaton said. "Let's get you warmed up and I'll brew you something that will help." 

Stiles didn't particularly want to drink more of Deaton's bitter potions, but he knew they would help with this shaky feeling. The trembling in his limbs wasn't entirely from the cold. 

Sitting by the fire, sipping at something foul-tasting, with Derek curled up by his feet, Stiles asked, "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" 

"I don't know what you mean," Deaton responded. 

Stiles gave him a sceptical look. "You taught me the magic to break the chain and kept sending me up there. You wanted me to set Derek free." 

"If I did want that," Deaton said, "I could hardly tell you so." 

"Your whole cryptic thing is extremely annoying." 

"Magical oaths can be very frustrating, but unless the person who gives the wording is particularly precise, there are often ways that they can be circumvented, at least to an extent." 

His statement wasn't a direct answer to Stiles' question, and it certainly wasn't an admission that he'd planned for Stiles to break Derek's chain. On the surface, it was simply a statement about magical theory. Stiles guessed whoever had made Deaton swear whatever magical oath bound him hadn't been all that precise. 

"Lord Peter seems like someone who would be precise," Stiles commented. 

"He does give that impression, doesn't he?" 

Stiles wished that Deaton could be more direct. Was that Deaton's way of saying that it wasn't Peter he'd sworn the oath to? Or was the word 'seem' in there to imply that Peter wasn't as clever as he seemed? Deaton had commented that he was bound to obey Peter until someone with a better claim to the title came along. It might not be Peter specifically that his oath was tied to. Stiles tried to think of a question that would ask what he needed to ask without asking it. 

"How precise was the previous ruler of these lands?" Sitles asked. 

"Lady Talia was considerably less precise than Peter," Deaton said, "at least with those she trusted." 

Stiles took that as an answer. Deaton had sworn a magical oath to Lady Talia, binding him to obey the bloodline, but that had been co-opted by Peter when he became Lord and now Deaton was rebelling as much as his oath would allow. Peter must trust Deaton somewhat because of the oath, but there were limits on how far this rebellion could go before Peter realised and acted against all of them.


	19. Chapter 19

Derek came to Stiles' bedroom with him when Deaton locked him in for the night. He'd avoided attention through the day, staying in Deaton's workroom with them and hiding behind the door when the servants came in with food. No one else went up to the top of the tower, so it wouldn't be hard to keep his disappearance a secret, unless Peter himself decided to check up on him. Stiles hoped that the weather would deter him from any such attempt. 

Stiles lay down in bed and Derek climbed up beside him, lying down on top of the covers, but close enough to Stiles that his warmth would be noticeable through the blankets before long. Stiles reached out idly to stroke Derek's fur. 

"Just don't shed on the bed," Stiles said. 

Stiles lay in the darkness with Derek beside him and wondered whether he'd be able to hep Derek escape the castle. He had the magic to destroy a link of chain, so getting through his door ought to be easy enough. He wouldn't even need to use the full force of a destruction spell. There was magic for moving objects, so he could use that to unlock the door even without a key. The problem would be guards. He might be able to use magic against them, and it was possible that Derek's teeth would scare them off, but if the alarm was sounded they might both end up dead for the attempt. 

Even if they made it out of the castle, the cold would probably kill them. Or him at least. He didn't have a fur coat to protect him. He would need to have some plan for when he got outside the castle walls. Perhaps his dad could help with that. Once he got the slate spell working, they could coordinate things and his dad could wait for them outside the castle with warm clothes and provisions, and they could all escape together. That was a good plan. In the meantime, he could learn whatever Deaton could teach him about sleeping potions or anything else that might help them make their escape undetected. 

"I'm going to get us out of here," Stiles promised Derek. He fell asleep with Derek's head resting on his chest. 

***

Days crept past and Stiles didn't mind them so much now that Derek was inside with them and not trapped in the miserable weather outside. He worked on his magic store, putting more power into it, and in between working on potions and theory with Deaton. He mixed sleeping potions, but the problem would be getting anyone to drink them. 

"Giving a potion to one person is a challenge," Deaton said, "unless they trust you enough to just drink a glass you offer them, but giving a potion to multiple people is significantly more difficult. With a sleeping potion, you don't want the first person to start falling asleep before the last has had a chance to drink." 

This was Deaton's way of saying that drugging the guards to make his escape was probably not going to be a viable option. Stiles kept the bottle of sleeping potion anyway, just in case, but tried to think of other options that would help him make his escape. 

"Are invisibility spells a thing?" Stiles asked one morning, after he'd finished charging up his magic store again. He was almost ready, Deaton believed, to do the spell on the slates for real, but he would still need a reserve of power to make it work. 

"True invisibility is exceedingly difficult," Deaton said. "I have never seen a magic worker manage to achieve it. It is theoretically possible but not the most practical option." 

"So what would be a practical alternative?" 

"There is magic which can make a person less noticeable. It is not true invisibility and someone who is particularly attentive might notice you, and you can still be seen if you make a loud noise or behave in a way that would usually draw attention, but if you are quiet and careful you could slip past those you wish to avoid." 

"Do you have a book that explains how it works?" Stiles asked, not really hoping that Deaton would just tell him the spell. That would be too easy. 

Deaton gave him one of those irritating smiles that appeared when he thought he'd found a particularly interesting lesson. 

"See if you can work out the components yourself," he said. That was what Stiles had been hoping to avoid, but he sat down with his slates and tried to figure out what would need to be included in a spell. Most of the magic he'd been doing involved physical objects, which was not relevant now. Had Deaton actually taught him any magic involving people's perceptions? 

After several minutes of searching his brain and staring at his blank slate, Stiles just said, "No." 

Deaton looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "No?" 

"No, I can't do it. I don't even know where to begin. I could do a spell to set a fire somewhere else as a distraction, but I don't know how to make someone not notice me. I don't know how to do a spell to change someone's perceptions." 

"You are not doing the spell on the other person," Deaton said. "You are doing the spell on yourself." 

He had taught Stiles some magic on glamours, at least in theory, spells which could make something appear to be something else. Stiles considered this, thinking about what he could do. He simply didn't have the vocabulary and even if he did, he still wasn't sure how to make it work in this context. He could change the colour an object seemed to be, but that was only useful if he could perfectly mimic whatever he was standing in front of, and that would only work against one person at a time because multiple people would be looking from different angles and need to see something slightly different. 

Stiles stared at his slate. He'd written down the word for glamour spells and the word for self, but didn't have anything to fit around those two words. He looked back at Deaton, remembering what he'd said back when he'd first come here, about how admitting that he didn't know something was a perfectly acceptable answer. 

"Please help," Stiles said. 

Deaton came over to the table he was working at and looked at Stiles' slate. Whether he was amused or disappointed by Stiles' pitiful attempts, it was impossible to tell from his face. 

"I won't give you the spell," Deaton said, picking up another slate and starting to write, "but I will give you the components, along with a few unnecessary terms. You can determine which terms are required and combine them appropriately." 

"Thanks." 

When Deaton handed the slate back, it was covered in words like 'see' and 'hear', 'quiet and small', and more than a dozen other things. Deaton had written the word in the language of magic and the translation of each term. Stiles studied these options, chewing his lip as he puzzled it over. 

He could do a glamour to be small, but that would be more likely to draw attention, making people wonder why this miniature person was wandering around. Could he phrase it so that the amount of seeing would be small? He tried writing out a few sentences, though he was sure he was mangling the grammar appallingly. He wrote and erased and wrote again, but finally managed to get enough of an answer though to feel he could go back to Deaton for more help. 

Deaton took the slate from him and studied it carefully. 

"You have forgotten your verb conjugations," Deaton said. "If you cast this on yourself, you would render yourself all but blind and deaf." 

Stiles made two more attempts, trying to get the verb endings to show that the seeing and hearing was being done by someone towards him as the caster rather than being done by him. After the third attempt, Deaton either decided he wasn't going to work it out himself or he considered that Stiles had made it close enough to the answer on his own. Deaton rearranged the spell, moving some of the words around and changing the endings of two of them. 

"So this will make me unnoticeable?" Stiles asked. "I should test it. I should cast it and try walking down to the courtyard and see if anyone spots me." 

"If your test fails, you will have to answer to Peter," Deaton pointed out. "You should perform a more private test first. Besides, you only have a spell to work on yourself." It took Stiles a moment to work out why that would be a problem, but then his eyes fell on Derek. If this escape plan was to work, he needed to be able to hide Derek as well as himself. So it was back to the slates to rework the spell to cast on someone else. 

Stiles hesitated, uncertain if Derek would be considered someone or something by the forces of magic in his current state. Derek was a person, or had been once, but he was also an animal. The magic for working with animals and working with people was different in a few key areas. Stiles considered and then decided on the side of person. Deaton could correct him if he was wrong, but Derek didn't deserve to be treated as less than a person just because he was currently imprisoned in fur. Stiles could consider him a person until someone told him otherwise. 

Rewriting a spell that he already had was a little easier than trying to create it from its component parts, but Deaton still needed to change the ending on one word before he was satisfied. Stiles was pleased to note that Deaton didn't even question the fact that Stiles had written the spell to have a person as its subject. 

"Do you feel strong enough to test it out?" Deaton asked. Stiles considered. He'd been pouring his magic into the store only that morning. It wasn't as exhausting a process as it had been back when he'd first started this exercise, which he took to mean that his magical abilities were growing as Deaton had promised they would, but he wasn't sure he wanted to risk another spell today, especially not when he was casting it on someone else. He didn't want to make a mistake and cause Derek harm because he didn't have enough power to do it properly. He also didn't want any more of Deaton's foul tea. 

"Tomorrow," Stiles said. "I'll test it tomorrow."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for basically disappearing for a while, things got busy with work and family stuff and my original writing. There's a lot going on over the Christmas period so I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to update.

In the end, Stiles didn't test out the concealment spell so soon. He'd already decided that he would need to coordinate with his dad to arrange for an escape of the castle, so he decided to continue working on the slate spell first. In the few days it would take to get the slates delivered to his dad, he could work on the concealment spell and any other magic necessary to effectively escape. It was more important that he have a way to communicate with his dad, though he did make a point to learn the concealment spells by heart, just in case something came up that meant he would need to escape Peter's wrath sooner. He didn't want to get his eyes poked out or feet cut off. 

It felt like he'd been preparing for the slate spell for years, and he didn't want to calculate how many days it had actually been, how long had passed since he was last able to communicate with his dad. This spell felt long overdue, but Stiles understood why it had taken so long before Deaton thought he was ready to try the whole thing. The fact that Deaton was already brewing his restorative potion before Stiles had even started did not bode well. 

Stiles sat down with the two slates and his store of magic, the spell written down for him to reference even though he knew the words inside out and back to front by now. He knew the words, understood their meaning enough to hold the spell in his mind, it was now time to see if he had the power and control to cast something this complicated. Beside him, Derek pressed up beside his leg, looking at him with big, concerned eyes. Stiles petted Derek's fur, his presence a warm comfort at his side. He swallowed. 

"I'm ready," he said. 

He touched one hand to the store of magic, the other to the two slates. He'd modified the spell to only draw on the power gradually, to prevent him burning himself out with his own power. He had practiced drawing magic enough that he was confident he could pull on the magic at the right rate to achieve his goal. Well, somewhat confident, at any rate. 

He swallowed again, trying to ignore the nervousness churning in his guts, and spoke the words of the spell, concentrating on what he wanted to achieve. He held each word in his mind as he uttered it, the meaning behind them clear, his attention focused on his intent. He felt warmth beneath his fingers on the slate and his magic store, but not the burning of too much too fast. He pushed his fears aside. The warmth still remained as he reached the last syllable of the spell, a sign that he'd had enough power to make it work, and then he let the rest of the magical energy flow through him, every last drop of it flowing from his store into the slates to make the spell last as long as possible. 

Only when the wood seemed cold beneath his fingers again did Stiles remove his hands. He slumped back in the chair, exhaustion hitting like a wave washing over him, not enough to drag him down into the depths of unconsciousness but still enough to make him sag, as if even sitting up straight was too much of an effort. 

Derek placed his head in Stiles' lap and gave a concerned whine. 

"I'm alright," Stiles said, petting Derek's head again. Derek pushed his head into his hand, as though trying to pet him back. 

Stiles forced himself to sit straighter and picked up a piece of chalk. He dragged it over the surface of one slate, leaving a wobbling line. On the other slight, an identical line of chalk appeared. Stiles gave a laugh, some part of him not quite believing he'd achieved it, after what felt like forever working towards this goal. He drew a line on the other slate and watched the first slate mimic it. When he wiped away the lines on one slate, the other slate wiped itself clean at the same moment. Stiles laughed again and then slumped down in his chair. He'd managed it. His first complex spell, his magical means of communication with his dad, and he'd actually made it work. 

Deaton pressed a cup of his disgusting potion into Stiles' hand and Stiles drank it in large gulps, while Deaton stood behind him and placed a hand on Stiles' shoulder, squeezing it gently. 

"Well done," Deaton said. 

"I still need to get it to my dad," Stiles said. 

"I'm sure Scott will be willing to help with that, but might I suggest waiting a few days." 

"Why?" 

"So you can recover from this spell enough to cast another. It would give us a good opportunity to test out your concealment spell." 

It made sense. It gave Stiles an opportunity to test that spell without risking much. If the spell failed and Scott saw him, that was fine because he would expect Stiles to be here. 

"That will be a true test of the spell," Deaton said. "He will be expecting to see you, so that would give him an advantage to make you more noticeable. If the spell conceals you despite that, then you can be more confident that it will conceal you from someone whose job is to be attentive to people being where they are not supposed to be." 

So Stiles waited, even though he was anxious to send one of the slates to his father. Over the next two days, he was careful of his magic use, creating another couple of lumps of gold to use as payment, but otherwise recovering so he could try the much larger spell. 

Three days after he had done the slate spell, Deaton sent a message to Scott asking him to visit the tower room once he was done with his guard training. Stiles had the two concealment spells in front of him, one for him and one for Derek. Deaton had checked both spells but still Stiles was nervous. This was something very different from casting a spell on an inanimate object. If he did something wrong, he could make them burst into flames, or interfere with Derek's wolf-spell, or make them both drop dead. 

Stiles crouched in front of Derek and looked him in the eye. 

"Are you sure you want to risk this spell?" Stiles asked. 

Derek gave a definite nod, his eyes shining with more trust than Stiles felt for himself. That was more reassuring than Deaton's confirmation of the spell's correctness, but it wasn't quite enough to still Stiles' nerves entirely. He didn't want to risk hurting Derek, who had already been through so much, so he looked over the words for the spell that would conceal himself, and read them in a clear voice. He was able to keep his voice from shaking, make each syllable sound distinct and precise. 

He didn't feel any different when the spell was done, but he saw the way Derek was looking at him, or not looking at him. His head kept slipping to one side, as though his gaze couldn't latch onto Stiles. Across the room, Deaton squinted at Stiles, frowning as he focused on him. 

"Is it working?" Stiles asked. Derek's head, which had slipped to one side again, snapped back towards him, but only for a moment. Stiles looked down at himself, seeing legs and arms, seeing his body as it normally would but Deaton was obviously having more difficulty. He rubbed a hand across his face as though trying to dismiss a headache and then he blinked in puzzlement at where Stiles stood, having to squint and struggle for long moments before his eyes locked on Stiles' again. 

"It would appear to be working," Deaton said. He gave an amused smile, "Or not appear, as the case may be." 

Stiles ignored the attempt at a joke and crouched in front of Derek again. 

"Are you ready, Derek?" Derek seemed startled by the question, head jerking back to Stiles again. He nodded. Stiles took up the other spell and read the words carefully, taking his time even more than he had with the spell on himself. 

When he uttered the last word, he blinked, and then Derek was no longer in front of him. Except... he was there. It was like he had somehow melted with the background, his fur blending into the darkness under the table behind him so that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Even his eyes seemed to fade, less obvious than they should have been. Stiles knew Derek was there, so he could see the shape of him, the fur and form of him, but only when he paid attention. As soon as his focus wavered, Derek seemed to fade away and it took a great deal of effort to identify him again. 

Stiles reached out to touch Derek, finding the warm fur, and feeling Derek flinch away in surprise. That sudden movement made him come sharper into focus, but only for a moment. He faded again as soon as he was still. Even the fur beneath Stiles' fingers seemed indistinct, like he might mistake it for soft fabric or warm air or anything other than what it was. 

"I guess it works," Stiles said. 

Deaton turned towards them again. "Be careful of making noise or fast movements." 

Stiles was getting that. When Derek was still, he almost vanished. When he moved, he appeared for that moment. It was enough to draw the eye and make a watcher focus in on the location. It would be enough to give them away and get them killed in an attempt of escape. 

There came a knock on the workroom door. Stiles froze. Beside him, Derek faded to almost nothing. Deaton opened the door to admit Scott, who looked about with a puzzled expression on his face. 

"Isn't Stiles here?" Scott asked, eyes passing right over where Stiles waited. 

"Stiles is with Derek," Deaton answered. Technically true. This was the proof that the spell truly worked against one who wasn't prepared for it. Stiles felt a thrill of hope that he might be able to escape from Peter's clutches, along with Derek. 

"You asked to see me?" Scott asked. 

"Stiles was hoping you could arrange for another package to be sent to his father," Deaton said. He indicated a small box on one of the tables, in which the slate and a supply of chalk was carefully wrapped. Beside the box, two small lumps of gold waited. "Payment, for the messenger." 

Scott could also pocket one piece of gold for himself if he chose, but Stiles doubted he would attempt it. Scott nodded his agreement without any argument about how Peter might react. Perhaps he still felt guilty for the whipping, or for capturing Stiles in the first place. Perhaps he pitied Stiles because of what had happened with Peter. Either way, Stiles would take his help. 

Stiles decided to test out the spell's limits, edging slowly away from where he stood and moving around the room. He was careful to keep his movements slow, waiting for the moment when Scott's attention would snap to him, but it never came. Stiles managed a half loop around the room without either Scott or Deaton so much as glancing in his direction. 

"Is Stiles alright?" Scott asked Deaton. 

"As well as can be expected," Deaton replied. 

"I suppose that's all we can hope for." 

Deaton nodded but didn't say anything further. He opened the door for Scott. If Stiles had been closer, he might have tried to sneak out the door behind him, to see if the spell worked as well in the rest of the castle, with more potential eyes on him, but that would have involved rushing across the room and he was sure that would attract attention. So he just waited where he was. Deaton closed the door and turned back to where Stiles had been a minute before. 

"I count that as a success," Deaton said. Then he frowned, staring into the empty space, trying to see Stiles where he no longer was. He cast his eyes across the room, passing over Stiles without pause, and then shot a worried look towards the door, perhaps wondering if Stiles had indeed snuck out behind Scott. The expression on his face, combined with the fact that his spell had defeated even Deaton's focus, made Stiles give a short burst of laughter. Deaton spun to face him, and then gave a nod of approval. 

Stiles turned back, trying to see Derek, and a worry began to creep into his mind. They hadn't talked about ending the spell. How was Stiles supposed to stop this? 

He was about to ask Deaton when he felt the weakness coming over him. He sank into a chair as his vision dimmed for a moment, and then he felt the magic slip away. The spell vanished and Stiles was left with just the exhaustion in its wake. Across the room, Derek gave a whine of concern and padded across to Stiles. He didn't seem at all the worse for the spell, which wasn't really surprising, since it had been Stiles' magic powering it and therefore Stiles who felt drained. Deaton started to gather the ingredients for the now-familiar restorative potion. 

"That lasted nearly half an hour," Deaton said. "An impressive first attempt, but you will need to practice if you wish to give yourself time for an effective escape." 

"I also need to vary the spells so that Derek and I can see each other," Stiles said, "otherwise coordinating our escape will be challenging." 

"Perhaps you should work on the theory of adjusting the spell while you recover," Deaton said. Stiles nodded. He returned to his usual seat and took up the two written spells, starting to plan how to change the wording to make exceptions for himself and Derek. The spell was already complicated enough and he was adding another clause to each of them, which was bound to increase the magical toll. It might make the spell even shorter. He was pulling together the pieces of an escape, but even so it still felt a very long way away.


	21. Chapter 21

Stiles watched the slate carefully. He stared at the dark surface, waiting for a mark to appear. Several times each day, he wrote the word _hello_ on the slate and waited for a response. When none came, he wiped the slate clean again. The first and second days, he'd told himself that it was understandable that the slate hadn't arrived yet. Even on the third day, he told himself that it was inevitable that Scott had needed to wait a little before taking the box to the messenger, and the messenger still had the distance of the journey to cover. On the fourth day, he started to feel anxious and impatient. By the fifth, he was checking the slate so often that Deaton grew impatient with him, telling him to focus on his studies. 

Then, underneath Stiles' scrawled _hello_ a new word appeared. 

_Stiles?_ appeared in small, even letters. Stiles sagged with relief. 

_It's me,_ he wrote, then added, _Dad?_

_It's me._

Stiles felt that he ought to test his dad, to make sure that it was really him and that the messenger hadn't sold him out to Peter, but there was one more message that was far more critical to give first. Stiles wrote, _I miss you_ with tears in his eyes. 

Underneath, the words appeared, _I miss you too. I love you._

They'd reached the bottom of the slate. Stiles took a cloth and wiped it clean so that they could write again. Deaton made no comment about lessons today as Stiles and his dad wrote back and forth on the slates. Stiles asked about shared memories so that he could be certain it was his dad he was talking to, and got that reassurance, offering some of his own. He asked about the whipping and the consequences of that, in case there were things his dad hadn't wanted to put in a letter in case it was read, but which could be said now on these slates without any danger of a record being left. His dad assured him that he was fine, though he was being shunned by neighbours because the others in the village were afraid of being seen associating with him. His dad tried to downplay that situation, but Stiles guessed that it was hurting him to be so mistrusted and abandoned. 

Stiles wrote about his lessons with Deaton and that he was learning magic that would be useful to help him escape. 

_My plan's not ready yet,_ he wrote, _and I won't be able to bring much with me in terms of supplies. You'll have to meet me and have preparations for an escape to somewhere outside of Peter's control._

Stiles knew his father would feel better about an escape plan that he had an active hand in, and he was in a much better position than Stiles to lay on provisions and make travel arrangements. Stiles would focus his energy on getting out of the castle. He didn't mention that he would be bringing an enchanted wolf with him because he wasn't sure where to even begin with explaining Derek. He would tell that story when he met his father face to face again. 

He also didn't mention his long-term goal, vague as it was. Stiles was focused right now on escaping the castle with Derek, on making sure that they were safe from a man who had threatened to torture and mutilate them. After that, he still had a lot to learn about magic but he could take some of Deaton's books with him. He could keep practicing, building up his strength and working on battle spells. Once he'd worked out a way to turn Derek back into a human and he'd honed his skills for a while longer, they would return and they would see to it that Peter died. It was so ill-defined that it didn't really count as a plan yet, so there was no point worrying his father with talk of future assassinations. His dad would help him get to safety. They could worry about the rest of it later. 

_How long do you need to prepare?_ his dad wrote through the slate. 

Stiles considered the question. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, before Peter realised that he'd released Derek from his chain at the top of the tower, but his hiding spell was too weak right now to last long enough. It would be better if he could have a store of magic and draw on that as he made his escape so he could make the spell last as long as he needed it. If he could store up his magic for a few days, that would be enough, but he was sure there were other things he would need to prepare for. He might need magic to break through doors or use magic to disable a guard or something else he hadn't even thought of yet, so he ought to make sure he had plenty spare for those things, or in case something went wrong. 

_At least a week,_ Stiles wrote. _Perhaps two._

He knew his father wouldn't be happy about waiting, but it was better to do this right and make their escape than to rush into things and get caught. He would probably only get one attempt at this because if Peter found out, he would make good on his threats. Stiles didn't think he'd be able to escape from this castle missing his feet and eye. 

Thankfully, his father didn't argue. He wrote, _That gives me time to gather supplies._

They wrote back and forth for a while longer, until Stiles' hand was aching from gripping the chalk and there was white dust everywhere from where he hurried to wipe it clean again for more words. When he and his father decided to end their conversation for the day, Stiles found that he was crying. He hadn't felt this close to freedom in a long time and the feeling was overwhelming. Derek butted his head against Stiles' side in what was presumably meant to be a gesture of solidarity, and Stiles petted his fur gently. 

Stiles looked across at Deaton, who had been pretending not to pay attention to Stiles for some time. 

"I need to make a proper plan," Stiles said. "Does one of these books have a plan of the castle? Or a map of the local area?" 

Deaton gave a small smile. "Yes, to both of those." 

He stood and began searching his shelves. After a few minutes, he laid a scroll down in front of Stiles and started turning pages in a large book, looking for a specific place. Stiles unrolled the scroll, clearing space on his table for it and using the items he'd just moved to pin down the corners of the scroll to keep it from rolling shut on him again. Before him lay a detailed map of Lord Peter's lands, including the main thoroughfares of the city and the lay of the land around it. After a minute, Deaton set his book down on top of the map. It was one of the books of the history of the Hale family, this section describing an extension being built to the castle. The pages included careful diagrams of the castle and its defences. 

Stiles grinned. This was perfect. 

"I can't help you with the guard postings and patrol times," Deaton said. "Your friend Scott might know that information but I don't know whether you want to ask him." 

Stiles didn't know either. Much as that information would be useful, he didn't want to talk to Scott about his plans to escape. It wasn't that he was afraid Scott would reveal his plans to Peter, though there was a part of him concerned about that, but more that he didn't want to get Scott into trouble. Scott was already taking risks for him in sending the packages to his father. Asking any more of him just seemed selfish. Besides, Scott was clear about his dedication to duty and he was sworn to serve Peter. Even if Scott didn't turn Stiles in, there was every chance he would refuse to directly help him because he felt he was prevented by that oath. Just talking to Scott about it would put him in the position of having to make that choice. 

Maybe there was a way Stiles could get some of that information from Scott without having to explain what was really going on. He could ask Scott things like whether he ever had to do night patrols as a subject of casual conversation and see if he could pick up a few bits and pieces of information to aid in his planning. If nothing else, he could try and time his escape for a night Scott wasn't on duty so as not to get him into trouble for letting Stiles escape. 

Stiles studied the castle plan and tried to work out his best route out, as well as a backup plan. The castle building had several doors, used by residents and servants. There weren't many windows low to the ground that would be large enough so he would have to pick one of those doors unless he felt like mastering a flying spell or something to prevent injury on the long fall down. He preferred a plan that would let him keep his feet on the ground. 

The problem was going to be the outer wall. That only had the one gate which was kept guarded and there would almost certainly be guards patrolling the top of the wall. If he were on his own, Stiles might have considered finding a way to climb over the wall, trusting in his invisibility spell to keep from being noticed, but Derek could hardly climb stone with his paws. No, the only option was to go through the gate, unless there was some way to magically pass through solid stone. 

"Deaton," Stiles said, "is there a way to magically pass through solid stone?" 

Deaton laughed. "Technically, the answer is yes, but the answer to your real question of, 'is this something you should attempt,' is a very definite no." 

"That was a surprisingly clear and definite answer," Stiles said, which said a lot about the seriousness of the situation. "How dangerous would it be to attempt this?" 

"That depends on how fond you are of breathing, and of having your blood and organs remaining inside your body in their current configuration. To pass through a solid object, you would need to render yourself insubstantial. You would then have to deal with the problem of requiring substantial air in your insubstantial form. And if all of you is insubstantial then there is the challenge of keeping all of you together in a working form, while still allowing your heart to beat and blood to move and so on. I have never heard of anyone successfully achieving this magic, though I have heard of some who attempted it and failed." 

"OK," Stiles said. "I guess I'll stick to going out the gates then." 

He frowned, considering that. He couldn't open the gates while he was invisible or it would draw too much attention. But it wasn't like the guards would just open the gate during the night so he could slip through. Stiles made a decision. 

"We have to escape during the day." 

Derek gave a quizzical whine. 

"If we try and escape at night, the doors and gates will be shut. Someone will notice them apparently opening on their own and we'll be caught. We have to go in daylight and wait for the guards to open the gates to someone and then we slip through. We'll have to trust in the spell to stay hidden." And try not to move too fast. 

It meant he had to make sure he had a strong store of magic prepared so that he could be certain the spell wouldn't wear off. It would have to last through the city as well because people would be sure to cause a panic if a wolf was apparently walking through the streets. 

Stiles pulled the other map towards himself. "I need to work out the quickest way out of the city so that Derek and I can get to cover before the spell wears off. And find somewhere to rendezvous with my father." 

"I would suggest," Deaton said, "not picking an obvious landmark on the map. If Lord Peter works out that you have outside help, he would expect you to arrange a meeting point. The first guess is that you would pick, say, this pond," he pointed, "or this crossroads, as something you could tell another person as a place to meeting. He would be likely to send his guards to every probably location to try and track you down." 

"So you're saying I should pick a meeting location that isn't on the map. But then how would I tell my father?" If it were near their home village, he could describe a particular tree or rock or clearing based on shared memories, but they'd never been near this city until this mess with Peter had begun. There were no shared moments to use as reference. 

Deaton frowned down at the map for a minute and then pointed to a patch of woodland just to the east of the city. "Around here there is a stump of an ancient tree. The stump is extremely large, wider across than this table. There is no other stump in the area of that size, so it would be impossible to mistake another for it. Derek knows the one I mean; I believe he used to take a young maiden there many years ago when he thought his parents didn't know." Derek gave a disapproving growl. "Your father can scout the area ahead of time to find the tree stump I mean. Then, on the day you make your escape, you can head into the woods and Derek can lead you there." 

That was actually a good plan. Stiles was still a little surprised at how uncryptic Deaton was being but he wasn't going to argue with his advice now. 

It would be hard for Peter to send guards after them even if he found out because 'large tree stump in the woods' wasn't a very clear set of directions. The drawback was that it wouldn't be a clear set of directions for his father either. 

"Tell me everything you can," Stiles told Deaton, "about where this stump is location, so that I can tell my father how to find it."


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise it's been over a month since I last updated this story, but I haven't vanished from the face of the earth. I'll try and not leave it so long before I post the next chapter.

Stiles was careful. More careful than he wanted to bother being. He waited and planned, made sure his father knew the meeting location. He father would come near to the city and scope out the tree stump Deaton had described, so that Stiles could be certain he would be waiting when they made the escape attempt. Stiles poured magic into his source, still using the lump of wood because it was familiar. He would be able to use that source to fuel his spells as they fled. He made adjustments to the invisibility spells so that he and Derek would be visible to each other, which was a frustratingly complex alteration. He was sure it would drain his magic much more rapidly than the first practice attempt so he would need the source. 

He made another practice attempt of the invisibility spell and tested it by creeping down the tower to his bedroom while one of the castle's servants was inside changing his sheets. He snuck into the room behind her and moved slowly around, Derek by his side. She had looked in his direction one and frowned, but then returned to smoothing sheets and tucking blankets as though there were nothing there. She didn't even glance up as Stiles and Derek walked slowly from the room. 

Moving slowly would be the key, he knew. That would be the biggest challenge to making it out the gates. It was possible that they'd only have a short period of time to cross through the gates if they were following some other visitor, but running would cause them to be noticed despite the spell. They would have to creep right up to the gate and wait to give themselves every second they could get once those gates opened. 

In the meantime, Deaton gave him other spells that might prove useful. There was a spell for moving small objects, which would be perfect for pushing the tumblers of a locking mechanism. Stiles practiced on the door to Deaton's workroom, sliding the lock back and forth without the key. It required precision and delicacy, neither of which were traits Stiles excelled at, and he rapidly developed a headache from the fiddly work, but Deaton claimed this was an excellent exercise in control and one that would stand him in good stead in all manner of future magic workings. That knowledge didn't do anything to make the headache go away. 

Other spells were things Stiles wouldn't have thought of but instantly saw the value in, like the spell to stay warm even in icy weather. Stiles could cast that on himself and Derek when they left the palace so that they wouldn't freeze trying to escape from the city. 

Deaton did more than just offer Stiles new spells. He brought an old cloak to the workroom one day and did a minor spell to adjust the length so that it would fit fell enough. He started asking for a few extra items with meals and then hiding them away. It wasn't a great deal of food, but Stiles would be making his escape with some fruit and dried meat and other items that could tide him over until he met up with his father. 

The days passed and soon Stiles felt a state of constant anxiety as the knowledge that he would soon be making his escape attempt filled his every moment. Sleep became more difficult and was filled with dreams of all the things Peter would do if this failed, or dark images of his father attacking Derek, mistaking him for a wild animal, or of ambushes in the woods. Every fear he had in waking life returned each night to torment him until there were times when he felt certain this escape was impossible. He almost wanted to put an end to all the planning and give up his dreams of freedom. But then Derek would lie beside him on the bed, warm fur against his skin, and Stiles would remember why he had to do this. 

At last and yet somehow too soon, the day arrived when Stiles couldn't put off this chance any longer. He checked the last few details with his father over the slate and then packed his things. The slate when into his pack along with the small food supply and two water skins, one of which was filled with Deaton's restorative potion. He had a little bit of gold tucked away in there as well, in case it became necessary for bribes. He had some of Deaton's books, handed over with solemnity and a sincere request that Stiles continue his studies in the future. 

Then the preparations were done. Stiles took his store of magic in his hands and tried to think of something appropriate to say. He wanted to thank Deaton for his teaching and for his help with this plan, but words seemed inadequate. He wanted to ask for one last bit of advice, one last lesson to help him on his journey. He'd even accept a vague and cryptic statement if Deaton had one to offer. His future, his safety, his life, all depending on the actions of the next few hours and Stiles felt deeply aware of all the things he didn't yet know, all the ways this plan could go wrong, and his own inadequacies in magic. 

"Are you sure you can't come with us?" Stiles asked. 

Deaton shook his head. "I have to stay here. This is your challenge, but one I'm sure you're capable of meeting." 

Deaton reached out and placed a hand on Stiles' shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. The gesture and the words did nothing to diminish the nervousness Stiles was feeling and perhaps Deaton saw that in his face. 

"Good luck, Stiles," he said. 

"Will you get in trouble when Peter finds out I'm gone?" Stiles couldn't help feeling bad about leaving Deaton here with a monster like Peter. Stiles was focusing so much on saving himself but he couldn't forget that there were people he was leaving behind who would have to live with the consequences. 

"I can protect myself. You focus on protecting yourself and Derek. Take care of Derek." 

"I will. I promise." 

Derek bumped his head against Stiles' side. It was hard to know if that was his way of saying thanks, or a promise to protect Stiles back. Either way, Stiles petted his ears gently. 

He shouldered his pack and now it was time to go. He felt a little bad that he couldn't say goodbye to Scott, but it was better this way. Scott had no idea that Stiles was making this escape attempt and he was currently on duty guarding Peter, so he couldn't get in trouble for helping Stiles because his alibi was literally the lord of the castle. He couldn't do anything to shield Deaton from the consequences of his escape, but he could do this one thing to protect Scott. 

Deaton had invited Scott to share lunch with them a few days earlier and Stiles got found out this scheduling detail then. He'd made the decision that this was the perfect time to make his bid for freedom. That meant he couldn't afford to delay, no matter how nervous he was about this whole situation. He took a deep breath. He tried to push any thoughts of the consequences out of his mind as he looked at Derek. With one hand wrapped around his magical source, he said the words of the spell to make Derek invisible. 

He felt the warmth he was now able to recognise as magic at work, but Derek still looked the same to him. He glanced at Deaton, who gave him a nod. Then Stiles said the spell for himself. He waited for Deaton's confirmation that the two of them really were invisible and then he opened the door of the workroom and started down the tower stairs, Derek close at his heels. His heart hammered in his chest, so loud that it sounded like an alarm bell to him, but his feet moved softly on the stone steps. This was the moment it had all been about: freedom or doom. 

***

Deaton closed the door to his workroom and returned to his usual chair, but he didn't return to work. So much rested on what Stiles would do over the next few hours that he knew it would be impossible to concentrate on anything. There were so many things that could go wrong with his plans, so many ways that this could spell disaster for them all. 

He believed in Stiles' ability to make it out of the castle, but there were still risks there. If his invisibility spell failed before he made it out of sight of the guards, or even while he was trying to make it out of the city with a wolf at his side, then the alarm would be raised and Stiles might be recaptured. There was so many ways he might get unlucky, and his frequent clumsiness might be his undoing. If he bashed into an object and made a noise at the wrong moment, his spell might not be enough to save him. 

Deaton hadn't said any of this to Stiles because it was important that Stiles believed he could make the escape successfully. Leaving was the right choice for him to make. The risk of waiting didn't go away and every day he delayed was a day Peter might learn that Stiles had released Derek from the tower again and that would spell disaster just as plainly as a failed escape attempt. The risk of the escape wasn't going to diminish much further, no matter how much Stiles learned. Taking the chance was the right choice for him. 

But Deaton still wasn't sure it would be the right choice for all his plans. Stiles had Derek with him, which was good, and it was clear that Derek had no intention of leaving Stiles once they were free. The two of them would remain together, but Stiles didn't know enough about the spell that had transformed Derek into a wolf, didn't know enough about undoing enchantments, didn't know enough about anatomy to perform a transformation spell safely. Deaton couldn't be sure what would happen once Stiles left the castle. He just had to hope that he'd given Stiles enough knowledge to do what needed to be done, and trust Stiles' character for the rest. 

Until then, he would simply have to survive whatever consequences Peter directed at him.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth, but I have been busy with work and with book edits. The edits are all with the publisher now though, so I have time for fanfic again. I'll try and not leave this story so long between updates this time.

Stiles crept down the steps of the tower, Derek at his heels. It took all his courage to move out of this private area and into the main corridors of the castle. He'd planned his route so as to avoid guards as much as possible, but there were others who lived here, nobles and courtiers, not to mention a whole army of servants. A cluster of maids emerged from a doorway, arms full of linen, talking about some boy in the stable yard. Stiles pressed himself flat against one wall, trying not to breathe as they passed. The three walked abreast and an arm nearly hit him as they went past. 

Less than two minutes out of the tower and he'd almost been noticed already. The fear was almost overwhelming and he tried not to picture what might have happened if her arm had brushed against him and she'd noticed something was wrong. He kept going, moving slowly down the corridor, listening out for voices and footsteps, ready to freeze against the wall the next time someone came past. He had to stop a few more times before he made it to the back stairs. 

He stood for several minutes, wondering if he should have chosen the main stairs, as kitchen workers, maids, and craftsmen walked up and down the steps. They were all too busy about their own work to notice the spelled boy against the wall, but the staircase was always in use and too narrow for him to freeze half-way up. Stiles couldn't afford to move too quickly or he'd draw attention, which meant he needed a long break between people. He was just about to give up and look for a different way down when he got the gap he needed. The last servant walked away and there was no one in sight. 

Stiles ignored the need for slow movement and ran down the flight of stairs. He pressed himself against the wall at the bottom of the stairs to catch his breath and Derek pressed up against his leg. 

Then it was time to move again, creeping slowly along, pausing when necessary. He was aware of the time limit of his spell, glad that he'd brought the magic store to extend it, but still worrying about how long he might have left. He hadn't timed the spell exactly and it had taken him longer than he'd liked to get down to the ground floor. There was no point worrying about that now though. The spell would last or it wouldn't and all he could do was keep moving and hope it was enough. 

He found a side door that was rarely used, checked that there was no one about on this side and opened it. He slipped out, hoping that there was no one nearby to notice a door apparently opening by itself. He emerged into a garden that was grey with a thin rain. Bare winter branches were blown about in an icy wind. Stiles had never been so glad of miserable weather. No one in their right mind would be walking about the grounds in this sort of weather. Stiles pulled his cloak about him and started walking. It was possible that someone might look out the windows and notice a blur crossing the grounds but he hoped they would just dismiss it as an illusion caused by wind and rain. 

He passed through a gate into a garden of evergreens that looked a little more like it was supposed to, but which was still miserable enough with winter to be deserted. An ornate archway offered a route through into a covered walkway and here there were a couple of noble women with their handmaidens, taking in the air without having to step out into the rain, bundled up in furs against the cold. Stiles crept slowly past. He thought one of the handmaidens noticed something. She turned in his direction with a frown but then returned her attention to her mistress as Stiles waiting motionless until the danger was gone. 

It was all still taking far too long, but then he emerged into the main courtyard of the castle. The outer wall rose to one side of him, guards patrolling the top. The main gates were closed, two guards standing on duty on this side. There would be more on the other side of the gate, Stiles knew. Now all Stiles could do was wait. He couldn't do magic to walk through the wall. He wondered if he should have spent longer on the plan to climb over it, but Derek could hardly climb with paws. This had seemed like his only choice but he worried that the weather would work against him. It wasn't like the lords and nobles would be in any great hurry to go out into the city in this bleak weather. 

The rain was starting to soak through Stiles' cloak. It felt like the wind was getting colder every moment. Derek was a warm presence pressed up against his legs, but that wasn't enough to keep winter's chill at bay. Minutes passed. A clock somewhere chimed the passing hour. Stiles wondered if this was where his plan ended. Would he just keep standing out here in the cold and rain until his invisibility spell ran out of power? It was starting to feel like a distinct possibility. 

He should have planned some way to make someone leave the castle. 

But then there was movement on the other side of the courtyard. A stable hand was leading a carriage through an archway from the direction of the stables. The driver reined the horses in before the steps and Stiles gave a breath of relief. He touched Derek's head as a silent signal to be ready. 

The castle doors opened and Jackson, of all people, walked out. Peter was a step behind him, bidding him farewell and wishing him a pleasant journey. Jackson gave some grumble about having to travel in the middle of winter and how uncomfortable the carriage would be. Stiles couldn't hear Peter's reply and it was hard to care too much about that because the guards were already moving to open the gates. This was their chance. Stiles felt like his heart might explode in his chest from the tension as he crept as slowly as he possibly could towards the opening gate, still keeping an eye on the lord on the steps of the castle. 

Peter's eyes snapped towards Stiles and Derek. Stiles froze. He could barely breath. Terror engulfed his entire being. His hand clenched around his magic source so tightly it felt like he'd never be able to let go. Peter frowned towards the two of them. Beside him, Jackson gave a puzzled glance towards what he had to see as empty air and then looked back at Peter 

"What is it?" 

How had Peter noticed them? Was it whatever magic bound him to Derek? Stiles couldn't forget the way Peter's eyes had glowed, the way he'd commanded Derek up to the top of the tower. Peter had noticed them somehow when they'd moved and now he was straining with all his concentration towards where they stood and Stiles knew that it was possible to see through the illusion of invisibility with enough concentration. 

"Close that gate!" Peter called out, striding down the steps. The guards moved to obey. 

Stiles saw his chance at escape being snatched away from him. 

"Run!" he said, quietly but urgently, and then he broke into a run towards the gate. He heard the yell of surprise as someone saw their sudden movement but he couldn't care. He ran through the closing gate, Derek fast on his heels, and pounded with as much speed as he could away from the castle. 

He heard shouting from behind them but didn't dare look back. He was already out of breath and was sure they would be chasing him. He couldn't outrun the guards and every step he took at this speed would be noticeable, even if just as a blurry haze. 

He reached the large houses that surrounded the castle and dodged around the first corner before cramming himself into the shadows beneath a carefully pruned tree, one of a pair that stood on either side of a pair of impressive gates. Derek squeezed in beside him and pressed against his legs as the first of the guards hurried round the corner. Stiles put his hand over his mouth to try and hide the sound of his frantic breathing as the guards came past, looking about it. 

"Do you see it?" one asked. 

"No. What was it?" 

"Something magic. A demon?" 

One looked right at Stiles but then was past him, moving on down the street. Stiles clutched his magic source to his chest and tried to get his breathing back under control. More guards appeared, moving more slowly than the first set. Stiles didn't dare to move. He stayed pressed between the tree and the wall of the house, wondering how long his magic would last. The guards would be searching this whole area carefully and maybe even Peter would appear. He'd somehow seen through the illusion before, he might see through it again. 

They were outside of the castle now and Stiles had thought that when his happened he would finally be safe, but he felt just as threatened as ever. Peter would know that Deaton had helped him. If he ordered Deaton to help find Stiles again, would Deaton be forced to obey? The danger wasn't over yet. 

Beside him, Derek nudged his head against Stiles' leg. Stiles looked down and Derek jerked his head along the street, an unmistakable gesture that they should get moving. Derek was probably right. They were far too close to the castle here, right outside the walls, and Peter would probably rouse every guard in that place to hunt. Stiles needed to get away while his magic was still working. 

Stiles nodded. His lungs had stopped heaving now and his heart had returned to a more normal pace. He was ready to move again. He wasn't going to run this time, but go back to the earlier slow creeping, ready to freeze the instant a guard came round the corner. He stayed close to the walls of the grand houses and edged his way along, hearing the shouts and rattle of armour that seemed to come from every direction at once. Safety seemed such a long way away.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested to know about my non-fic writing, check out announcements on [my blog](http://www.plot-twister.co.uk/2018/03/21/wolf-unleashed-now-available-for-pre-order/) or on [my tumblr](http://jessicameats.tumblr.com/post/172628797359/wolf-unleashed-now-available). Especially if you've been wondering why Unchained vanished off AO3.

The invisibility spell vanished as Stiles and Derek were reaching the edge of town. There were still a few houses around, but there were not many people about in the miserable weather and he had to hope that no one would look out of their windows and notice the boy with the wolf at his side. 

He tried to hurry his pace, to get away from the town before they were seen, but the exhaustion was setting in. He wanted to collapse in the vegetable plots in front of the last few houses and just sleep for several hours. He doubted that would be a sensible plan. Derek whined and nudged at his leg, encouraging him forward. Stiles gulped down the potion Deaton had prepared for him, grimacing at the taste but hoping it would get him through the next few hours. The houses gave way to fields, the small vegetable plots becoming farmland and Stiles stumbled forward in a daze. 

"I can't keep going much longer," Stiles said. "I'll need a rest." 

Derek gave another concerned whine. 

"I'm fine. Just tired." 

Another anxious whine. Derek clearly didn't like the idea of stopping. Neither did Stiles, but he wasn't in a state to run if someone spotted them. It would be better to find somewhere to hide until he got his strength back again. He could barely lift his feet right now, barely keep his eyes open. 

Derek ran ahead a little way and nosed around under a hedgerow. He gave another whine, a different note to it this time, and turned to look back at Stiles. Stiles made his slow and wobbly way to Derek. There was a ditch behind the hedge, overgrown with long grass and tangling plants. It made Stiles think of the ditch he'd slept in the last time he'd properly been with his dad. He knew that it wouldn't make much of a hiding place, but he also knew that passing out in the road would be even worse. Stiles climbed into the ditch, feeling damp mud against his clothes, coldness seeping through. He longed for the warm fire of Deaton's room. He thought of the spell he'd memorised, the one for staying warm, but he didn't think he had the slightest scrap of magic left inside him to use it. So he just lay there and shivered as Derek lay down half on top of him, covering Stiles' cold body with warm fur. 

***

Stiles was woken by a wolf's nose nudging repeatedly at his face, insistent and determined. Stiles forced his eyes open, seeing Derek's dark face above him and the darkness that had fallen around them. He wasn't sure how long he had slept but he didn't think it had been nearly enough. He knew though that he had to get up and keep going because otherwise he would get caught or freeze to death. There was a line of warmth down him where Derek had covered him but the rest of him was aching with cold, the water having soaked through every layer of his clothes. 

Stiles climbed to his feet and stamped a few times, trying to get life back into them. He swallowed a few mouthfuls of food, hoping that would help give him energy, and took a moment to pull the slate out of his pack. The words 'are you alright?' were scrawled across it in chalk. Stiles wiped them away and replied quickly, telling his dad that he was out of the city and heading towards him but that there might be guards to avoid. 

Stiles started walking, hoping the exercise would warm him up a little, but the shivering didn't stop. He would have to try the warmth spell because there was no way he could keep going like this, he just had to hope that it wasn't too much too soon when he was barely starting to recover from the previous magic drain. Accuracy was crucial because he couldn't afford to waste the slightest morsel of power. He thought over the words, took care of where every one should fall and every nuance of pronunciation. He spoke the words and stumbled, another wave of tiredness coming over him, but he managed to stay on his feet. 

Derek pressed in against Stiles' side and it seemed as though warmth flowed out of him, travelling through Stiles' limbs with every beat of his heart, driving the cold away. He stopped shivering quickly enough and then he felt pleasantly warm, as though this was a stroll on a summer's day and not a winter's night. 

Derek's whine was questioning and Stiles said, "I'm OK. I'm warm now." 

He was still exhausted but this was an improvement. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and kept moving, almost glad that Derek couldn't talk because he wouldn't be tempted to ask how much further they had to go. He was fairly certain he wouldn't like the answer. 

They followed the road for a while and then turned off into the forest. The walking was more difficult here, but at least they wouldn't have to worry about guards riding up on the road and seeing them. Now that there wasn't quite so much danger of imminent discovery, Stiles found the tiredness once again taking over. His feet seemed to be made of lead, each step taking more energy than he was capable of mustering. 

"I need to rest again," he said. When Derek answered with a concerned noise, he added, "Just let me stop for a few minutes. Wake me up if I sleep too long." 

He sank down against the nearest tree, too tired to care about concerns of comfort, and closed his eyes. 

It felt like he'd barely sat down when Derek woke him with a low, anxious noise and a series of headbutts to the chest that increased with strength each time. 

"OK," Stiles said, "OK, I'm awake. I'm awake." 

He wondered how long Derek had let him sleep this time. Probably more than a few minutes, judging by the stiffness of Stiles' limbs. He stretched out and started walking again, still tired but with enough strength to keep walking for a while longer. He felt like he was caught in a nightmare, an endless cycle of tiredness that would never end. He would get a moment of reprieve only to have to get up and start walking all over again. The forest stretched onwards and time seemed to stretch too, until it started to feel as though this night had always been happening and always would. The only thing that kept Stiles going was Derek at his side, or occasionally running ahead to scout their path. Derek would stop and looked back at Stiles, eyes gleaming in the darkness, and Stiles knew he had to keep going, to make sure Derek made it to safety. 

He lost all track of time but after a while Derek returned from one of his forays up ahead. He came round behind Stiles and nudged him forward with enough force that Stiles stumbled. 

"Hey," he complained. "What is it?" 

Then he heard the voice up ahead, familiar and hopeful. "Stiles?" 

Despite his exhaustion, Stiles somehow found the strength to increase his pace. He hurried through the trees and into a large clearing, where the stump of a huge tree took up most of the space. There, standing beside the tree stump, was the person Stiles most wanted to see. His father, with a smile growing on his face. Stiles hurried forward, out of the trees, already throwing his arms out for a hug. 

A moment later, that smile froze and he raised a loaded crossbow, aiming the tip of the bolt towards Stiles. For half a second, Stiles thought this truly was a nightmare, or that his father was some illusion summoned to trick him. Then he realised that the crossbow wasn't aimed at him, but past him, to where Derek was following him out of the woods. He could suddenly understand how this must look to his father, with him hurrying out of the forest with a wolf at his heels. 

"Dad, no!" Stiles threw himself between his dad and Derek, and his dad barely jerked his hand back in time, even as he fired. The crossbow bolt flew through the air beside Stiles' head and embedded itself in a tree trunk. 

"Dad, don't," Stiles said, holding out a hand towards him, while Derek hung back, acting very unwolflike, waiting for this to play out. "This is Derek. He's a friend." 

"He's a wolf." 

"Yes, I know. There was a magic curse. It's complicated. He's not dangerous." Stiles knew that wasn't entirely true. He suspected that Derek could be extremely dangerous, but to people who threatened Stiles. He was definitely not a danger _to_ Stiles, he was absolutely certain of that. His father didn't look happy about this situation, but when Derek continued to not attack them, he set the crossbow aside. 

Confident now that Derek wasn't about to get shot, Stiles did what he'd wanted to do in the first place and hurried to his dad, throwing his arms around him in a hug that he hoped would never end. The warm arms held him in a way that was so familiar Stiles felt like something snapped inside him and soon he was sobbing, crying tears into his father's shoulders, relief and joy pouring out of him the only way they could. 

"Oh my god, I missed you so much," he said between the sobs, and he felt his dad's arms squeeze tighter. 

All through these last few weeks, he had been terrified he might never see his dad again, and now here he was, alive and safe, and they were together again. 

Stiles let go of the hug only when he felt he had to, and he found his legs nearly give way beneath him. Only his dad's hands on his arms kept him on his feet. It felt like the determination to reach his dad had been the only thing keeping him going and now that he was here his very last shred of energy was gone. 

"What's wrong?" his dad's voice was near panic. 

"I just need rest. I did quite a lot of magic to get here and it's tough." 

His dad helped him over to the tree stump so that he could sit down. Stiles sank down gratefully onto it, feeling the wood beneath him. He placed his hands either side of him on the stump and frowned a little at the surprising warmth of it. No, he realised a moment later, it wasn't warmth in terms of temperature. There was power here, in this tree stump, a magical energy that pulsed with a life of its own, like a heartbeat mimicking his own. It was like his own magic store, but containing something far stronger than the pitiful amounts he'd been able to pour into his block of wood. 

He wondered if he could use that. Right now, his energy was practically at nothing, but this tree seemed to have plenty. He could draw a little of that power out and into himself, replenishing what he'd lost. 

Almost as soon as the thought occurred, Stiles started murmuring the words of the spell, glad he'd added the limiter on the amount he could draw at any one time because he knew that the magic in this tree stump would burn beyond anything he'd experienced before. 

"Stiles?" his dad asked, voice full of concern, and Derek gave a whine, pressing his head against Stiles' leg. 

Then Stiles was barely aware of them anymore because he became aware of everything else. The power of the tree stump connected with his own and the whole forest was inside his head.


	25. Chapter 25

Stiles' felt the magic of the tree and he felt the energy reaching out from it like a web, and this stump was at the heart of it, tying all those threads of power together. With barely a hint of concentration needed, Stiles could follow those threads and see where they led, see the animals and plants that were part of the pattern, their lives giving energy to this greater whole even as they were fuelled by it. He could see standing stones, and circles, and cairns built on points of power, and he could see the flowing currents of magic between them, the patterns that they drew, the symbols and their meanings like they were spelled out in plain writing. 

He could see the points of light of magic workers, from the faint spark as yet unlit, to bright candles of practitioners who could work true spells. He could see Deaton like a beacon in his tower room, shining with magic, tied into this web by his own spells. Stiles thought that if he spoke his words in the right way, they would echo along the web between them and Deaton would hear him. He could see Peter, a figure with a light that burned inside him that wasn't his own. It glowed red, with the shape of a wolf, a power leashed inside him. 

Stiles could see the shape of the spell that had caused this, almost taste the words on his tongue, their meanings becoming clear even though he hadn't come across half of them before. It had been a request for power, driven by the desire for revenge. The spell had been about gaining animal strength to destroy enemies, to avenge family. Stiles could see where the spell had twisted, stumbled words warping the magic into something it wasn't wanted for. The animal strength had become the wolf shape that now held Derek trapped, and the connection to family had become to bond that now tied him to Peter. Instead of gaining power, Derek had given another power over himself. 

Derek had wanted to get justice for those who had killed his family, but some part of him blamed himself and that guilt had poisoned his intention as he'd cast the spell, doing more damage than any misspoken words. He had wanted justice for those who were guilty and with his own sense of guilt constructed a prison for himself. 

Stiles reached out, with his hand and with his power, touching the side of Derek's face. His fingers felt the soft fur and his magic sensed what lay beneath, the true form waiting to be revealed. The words lined up on Stiles' tongue without thought, tumbling out of his mouth without hesitation. There could be no doubt what the correct words were for the spell, not now, not with the language of magic dancing through his thoughts. 

This was so much easier than spending hours pouring over dull books. No memorising required. Right now, he could do anything. He could reach out with his magic and do whatever he wanted, the words of power appearing in his mind at every idle whim. He could reshape the world to his wishes. 

Forget draining himself to exhaustion conjuring pellets of gold, he could make gold rain from the sky with a whisper of will. 

Something hard struck against Stiles' arm but he barely felt it, or the other things which hit his head and shoulders and pinged off the tree stump. 

"Stiles!" Voices were calling his name, two voices, and he tried to draw his attention back to himself, but it was difficult when there was so much of the world out there to be touched and seen. He could travel from one end of the world to the other on wings of magic, see everything, learn everything. 

"Stiles!" 

He could find Peter again. The link to Derek had been severed, but he could find Deaton easily enough and it wouldn't be difficult to find Peter from there. Stiles was already reaching out towards Deaton as that thought occurred, imagining the punishments he could make befall the lord. 

But then hands were hauling Stiles from the tree stump. He stumbled, barely getting his feet under him in time, and then skidding on the surprisingly slippery rocks beneath him. Only those hands on his arms held him upright. Two pairs of hands. 

Stiles blinked, his attention returning to his physical location now that he didn't have the entire world's magic to distract him. He blinked again, and noticed the unfamiliar person standing beside him, holding him upright, and worryingly naked. 

"Derek?" he asked. The experience of being linked to the tree's source of power was rapidly fading from his mind, like a dream disappearing on waking. He couldn't remember the exact spell he'd cast, but he remembered understanding Derek's condition enough to know how to reverse it. He didn't remember actually saying the words, but he must have done. 

He also must have cast the spell that had caused the small lumps of gold which were scattered about the clearing. 

"Did I just make it rain gold?" he asked. 

"Something did," his dad answered. 

It was probably a good job that he'd been hauled off the tree stump because he didn't want to think about what else he might have done on a whim without even realising he was doing it. 

"You should sit down," Derek said. "You've just used a lot of power." 

"Actually... I feel fine," Stiles said. Fine was probably the wrong word. He was extremely disorientated but he didn't feel the way he did after he'd cast difficult spells with Deaton, or how he'd felt earlier while they'd been escaping. Stiles felt full of energy, tingling with it. He felt fresh and ready to cast whatever spells were needed. He didn't normally feel this prepared for magic even after a full night's sleep. Whatever he'd done with the tree stump, he'd managed to draw enough power to replenish everything he'd lost and then some. 

He looked back at Derek, who was still standing there completely naked on a winter night, and he muttered the spell for protection against cold. Derek blinked in surprised, but then said, "Thank you." 

"What did he just do? Stiles, stop doing things?" Stiles' father sounded absolutely frantic. 

"I did a protection from cold spell. Don't worry, that's one I knew even before getting my mind linked to a tree." 

His dad didn't look any less worried. 

"What just happened to you?" he asked. 

"I'm... not entirely sure. Deaton talked about energy currents that flow through the world and how it's possible to draw on their power. I think I just did that by accident." That didn't explain everything else, the way he'd been able to see things miles away, but it was as much of an explanation as he had right now. He looked back at Derek, whose bare chest was ridiculously distracting. He forced his eyes away and looked back at his dad again, "Do you have any spare clothes Derek can wear?" 

Stiles' father dug around in his pack for the spare clothes and then they filled up the space with lumps of gold from the clearing floor while Derek dressed. They couldn't take all the gold, so some woodsman was bound to have a very lucky day in the near future. Stiles didn't mind leaving so much behind because he knew he could always make more. 

"I've worked out a route for our escape," Stiles' father said. "I was only planning on two, but it will work as well with three." 

But Stiles looked at Derek, fumbling with fastenings on the shirt, obviously trying to refamiliarise himself with using fingers. They could run away together, all three of them, and find some route out of Peter's lands. Stiles knew enough magic to help them with their escape and right now he could cast invisibility spells on all three of them if they needed to evade capture. They had enough gold to start a new life anywhere they chose. 

But Stiles thought of Deaton back in that castle, working to undo Peter's plots despite the magic that bound him. Deaton was bound to obey the Hale lord, whoever that might be. His meaning was obvious. He was the one who'd picked this tree stump as their rendeveux point. He'd clearly meant for something like this to happen, for Stiles to use the power that flowed through this point to restore Derek to himself. Derek was the true Hale lord, the person who should be ruling in that castle. They had promised each other to get their revenge on Peter, and now Stiles felt like it was possible. 

"No," Stiles said. 

"What do you mean no?" his dad asked. 

"We're going back to Wolf Heart Castle." 

"You just risked your life escaping from there!" 

"I know, but Derek's human now. That changes things." 

"It doesn't change things for me. You didn't tell me anything about helping a wolf person get away. My plan was to get you away from there and that's what we're doing." 

"Derek is the true Lord Hale. Peter's a usurper." 

"That doesn't mean we should go back. If anything, it means we should run faster. Peter Hale is the one with power and guards who are willing to kill on his orders. You saying that this man is the true ruler isn't going to suddenly make them all switch their allegiance." 

"He's not the only one with power," Stiles said. He felt the tingle of power inside him, an energy humming beneath his skin, eager to be released. In the back of his mind, he could still feel the flow of power through this clearing, like a current through the world. He could reach out with his own power and touch it, draw more into himself if he needed. He wasn't sure if the connection would stay so strong if he left this clearing, but he hoped so. He thought so. The currents had flowed near the castle too; he could reach out to them there. He had all the power he could need, so long as he could remember the words that would form the spells. 

And so long as he didn't get lost in the power again. 

The details of his experience were almost gone now, but he still remembered how it had felt. He'd seen so much about the world, beyond the surface of things, and for someone prone to easy distractions that was a disaster because he'd wanted to look everywhere at once. It would be so easy to forget who and where he was and lose himself entirely. Deaton hadn't warned him about that possibility. 

"You were barely able to stay conscious when we got out of the city," Derek pointed out. "You can't intend to fight Peter's men so soon." 

"It won't just be me though. Deaton's bound to follow the true Lord Hale, which is you. As soon as you go back, he'll be able to help us fight Peter." 

"Do you know that?" Derek asked. "Do you know the details of his oath?" 

"Well... no." 

"Neither do I. For all we know, I'd have to be sworn in as lord in an official ceremony before it would override Deaton's oath of obedience to Peter. Besides, you haven't even asked me if I want to go back." 

"You want to get revenge against Peter, don't you?" 

It was so strange to be here, talking to Derek and being able to hear his answers in response. No more having to play guessing games to try and decipher what he wanted to say. They could speak to each other in words, but somehow it had been easier when Derek had been in wolf form. For one thing, wolf Derek had had a much harder time arguing with him. 

"I want Peter to pay," Derek said, "but that's my fight. You're safe now. You're with your dad. You don't have to go back." 

"We promised each other. When you were still trapped on the tower, we promised each other to find a way to kill Peter. I'm not going to let you go back alone." 

"I don't want you getting hurt, Stiles," Derek said. He'd said it so many times with his actions as a wolf, with the way he pressed up against him, or how he'd stepped between Stiles and Jackson, but it was different hearing it in words. There was a weight to those words, an intensity that made Stiles shudder a little, because Derek wasn't a wolf anymore. He was a man. A muscular, attractive man, looking at Stiles like he was the most precious thing in the world, something to be saved and protected against all dangers. Stiles felt warmed to his core to have someone looking at him with such caring. 

"So it's settled," Stiles' father said. "We're leaving, and not going near that castle." 

"It's not settled at all," Stiles said. "Someone has to stop Peter." 

"And why should that be you?" 

"Because no one else is going to do it."


	26. Chapter 26

It felt strange to be going back to Wolf Heart Castle after he'd fought so hard to escape it, and Stiles could understand why his dad was concerned about this. But things were different now. _He_ was different now. Something had happened to him when he'd linked with the tree and turning Derek back from his wolf prison into a human shape was just a part of it. Stiles had understood magic on an instinctual level that he'd never managed through all his lessons with Deaton. Stiles knew he still had a huge amount to learn, and that he would still need the vocabulary to cast spells, but the form of the language now made sense as the language he spoke every day made sense, something learned so deeply that he didn't need to think about it when he spoke. 

Then there was the power. It tingled inside him still, mingling with his own strength. When he concentrated, he could feel the flowing energies all around him, sense the presence of strong currents so that he could avoid them or use them. The tree behind him was a blazing Beacon of power, growing slightly dimmer with each step he took away from it, but he could still feel all those streams of magic it was connected to, could tell which one was closest and reach out to touch it, to borrow a little from it if he needed. He would never need to drink Deaton's foul potions again, he was sure of it. 

"Stiles, are you sure you’re alright?" his dad asked. 

Stiles suspected he'd been staring glazed-eyed into nothing. 

"I'm well," he said. "I'm... aware of magic. It's a little distracting, but it's going to be useful." 

"We can rest a bit, or take a few days for you to get used to whatever just happened to you." 

But Stiles knew that if they walked away now, it would be more difficult to go back. Besides, if Peter figured out what Stiles had done then Deaton was in danger. So Stiles pressed on towards the castle. 

When they reached the road, Stiles cast the invisibility spell on the three of them. Stiles had studied the spell carefully before his escape attempt, but still it was surprising how easily the words came to him now. He didn't even have to think about them. He found the pattern and said the words. 

His dad looked at the two of them and then down at himself, "Are you sure it's working?" 

"It's working," Stiles said. "I worded the spell so we can see each other, so it doesn't get confusing." 

He could feel it working, a warmth of power seeping through him as he cast. He was aware of it in a way he'd never been before, except when he'd drawn so much power it burned. This soft glow inside him was pleasant, like the soft light of a candle in his heart. 

As they walked, Stiles decided that Derek had been silent long enough. 

"Derek, you spent all those years trapped as a wolf. Surely there are things you've been waiting to say. Now you have the chance." 

There was a pause. Derek looked at Stiles, a considering expression on his face. Then he shrugged. 

"Oh come on!" Stiles exclaimed. Derek's mouth twitched into a smile that he was obviously trying to suppress and Stiles realised that Derek was messing with him. This most recent act of silence was a joke at Stiles' expense. 

"I think I liked you better as a wolf," Stiles said. 

The smile faded into genuine seriousness now. Derek finally spoke. "Some things were... easier as a wolf." 

"What do you mean?" 

"As a wolf, I didn't think so much. I was driven more by instincts, by emotion. Now, it feels like my brain is too full. I'm thinking and then thinking about thinking. Words are... Words are clumsy. I have to think if the words I'm saying are right... If they might be misinterpreted. If you might take them the wrong way." Derek spoke slowly, and Stiles could almost feel the effort it was taking him. He wasn't kidding about thinking each word through carefully. Stiles had always just said whatever popped into his mind, without stopping to consider the consequences, so what Derek was describing seem completely foreign to him. What was clear though was how much Derek was struggling with this. 

Stiles reached out and took Derek's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

"Don't worry too much about that," he said. "If I misunderstand something, tell me I've misunderstood. I'm not always the best at listening and paying attention to details, so I guess it's something we both can work on." 

"Thank you, Stiles," Derek said. He didn't let go of Stiles' hand. Stiles wasn't sure what to make of that but he wasn't going to argue. For so long, the only way Derek had been able to express himself was through physical gestures. Given his comments about the challenge of words, it was understandable that he would rely on physical gestures for some time to come. If that meant holding hands to show affection or gratitude, Stiles could go along with it. 

***

When they reached the city, there were guard patrols everywhere. Stiles ought to have been afraid of that, but he felt the confidence in his spell. He drew a little more power into it, weaving the magic about them more tightly, so that even the faint blurs of movement wouldn't be so noticeable. They crept through the fading darkness, past guards who didn't even know that they were there, until the main gates loomed in front of them. 

There were more guards on patrol of the walls. The sun was beginning to rise, lighting the sky and Stiles could make out the faces of those on the wall. Scott was there, and Stiles felt a knot of anxiety in his stomach. He didn't want to have to fight Scott. He didn't want to hurt him and he didn't even want to know if Scott would be willing to hurt him. 

Stiles pushed those feelings down. He had to concentrate now. 

"What are we going to do about the gates?" his dad asked in a whisper. The gates were a problem, locked and sealed. It was possible that they would be reopened once the sun had fully risen to allow new shifts of guards to go out, or exhausted patrols to return. But Stiles didn't want to wait until there were even more people about. 

He looked at the heavy wood and thought about the spells he knew. Deaton had taught him destructive magic so that he could erase the chalk on the slate, and he'd used it to free Derek from his chain on the tower. Really, there was no difference between destroying a link of chain and a pair of massive gates. The only difference was scale and the power requirement, but he had power now. He could still feel the currents flowing through the earth beneath his feet. One of them flowed right under the castle, whether by coincidence of design, and Stiles could close his eyes and follow that mental flow back until he could see that tree trunk glowing like a beacon in the distance. 

Stiles shaped the spell in his mind and the words fell into place. The words to draw on that power combined with the words to destroy. They came together into the only sentence that made sense, the grammar yielding to Stiles without a fight, and he spoke the spell aloud. 

His words were a muttered breath, too quiet to be heard by those on the wall, but the result was dramatic. In a handful of seconds, the gates went from being large and solid, to being as insubstantial as mist, and then they were simply gone. There was yelling from the guards on the wall and somewhere a warning bell started to ring. The gap where the gate had once been rapidly filled up with people drawing weapons and looking with panic in their eyes out into the night. 

There was no point in being subtle now. They had announced their arrival and they might as well continue. 

Stiles murmured some more words, the spell that had caused all this in the first place, and purple flames appeared in the middle of the gateway. He wished he knew the words to make the fiery form into the shape of a person, but he could make do with this. The flames burned in mid-air, wanting to die with no fuel to catch alight, but continued through the flow of magic Stiles poured into them. 

On the other side of the flaming ball, someone yelled about demons. A few guards attempted to shoot arrows into it, but the shafts just caught alight, the fire blazing brighter for a moment when it had actual wood to burn. The arrow heads fell to the stones in puddles of a molten metal. 

Stiles knew the words for things like quiet and small. He'd studied those while trying to construct the invisibility spell. He could shift them, used the negative, make a spell for something loud. Without letting the fire dim, he shaped a new spell and muttered it aloud, before uttering in a booming voice that rang through the city, "Peter Hale is a usurper." 

The guards had no hesitation in attributing the voice to the mass of fire that had apparently burned up the gates. Stiles remembered the spell for moving small objects, the one Deaton had taught him to use for picking locks, and he wove that into his fire spell, making tendrils of flame reach out from the central blaze. He had very little control over them as he fought to keep everything still burning, but it was enough to send terror through the guards. 

Then Stiles saw a figure hurrying towards the mass of burning magic, sword drawn, ready to fight a creature that had no physical form. Purple fire danced across his features and Stiles recognised him, and instantly felt terror flood his own heart as Scott charged in to attack his construct.


	27. Chapter 27

Stiles' control wavered as Scott swung a sword at a flaming tendril. That tendril winked out of existence, as did a couple of others, while the purple flames dimmed. Without fuel, they couldn't last, and without Stiles pouring his magic and his intent into them, they would disappear entirely. As Scott dodged back again, Stiles caught hold of himself and focused his will. The flames blazed again, but Scott and the other guards had noticed the change. 

"We can hurt it!" Scott called out. "Our weapons can hurt it." 

He looked ready lead a full blown assault on Stiles' false monster and Stiles would be forced to either burn him or let his fiery threat vanish. If he let the guards think they'd won, it would undermine the whole effect he was aiming for. He kept his fire monster burning and used the voice magnification spell again. 

"Only Peter Hale needs to die tonight." Stiles called, his voice echoing against the castle stone. 

And then Peter was there, beyond the purple flames, standing at the door of the castle. He looked at the creature Stiles had created without any sign of fear on his face and there, beside him, was Deaton. Stiles had hoped Deaton would be brought to their side by this attack, but he showed no sign of moving against Peter. At least not yet. 

At least Peter's appearance had made Scott and the others hesitate. They looked to him for orders. Peter studied the burning mass before calling out, "That creature is a puppet. A magic worker is nearby, using his tricks to deceive us." 

Stiles let the flame monster die. He stopped pulling on the torrent of magic from the currents as he did so, barely keeping the fire from burning his insides as the amount of power he was using dropped away. He was still holding the three of them nearly invisible which might buy them some time. He decided to try another approach, since he didn't want this to turn into a battle against Scott and the others. 

"You are a usurper, Peter Hale," Stiles called out in his amplified voice. "You stole your nephew's rightful place." 

"My nephew is not here," Peter called back. "He hasn't been here for years to claim any position." 

"Drop my invisibility," Derek said in a whisper. 

"Are you sure?" 

"Just be ready to blast him with fire if he attacks me." 

Stiles nodded, and let the spell around Derek fade as he walked forwards to the gates. 

"Liar!" Derek yelled out, making sure everyone would hear. "I am Derek Hale. I am the true heir of the Hale line and I have been your prisoner for years." 

Shock froze everyone. The guards, who had their weapons raised, hesitated, looking between Derek and Peter. Stiles was still terrified that one of them might decide to attack Derek, but for now it seemed like they were waiting to see how this would play out. On the steps of the castle, Peter stared, eyes wide with astonishment. Beside him, Deaton looked just as surprised, but a smile grew on his lips. 

Peter got his composure back quickly. His surprised recognition was hidden and he said, "I don't know who you are. You could be anyone. Some beggar off the street brought into this ruse to discredit me. You..." 

Beside Peter, Deaton said a single word. Stiles could feel the flow of magic around him and Peter. Stiles had never heard the word before, and was reasonably sure it hadn't been among those he'd studied while reading all of Deaton's books, but he recognised it nonetheless now that he heard it. It meant truth. Deaton had just hit Peter with a truth spell. 

Peter kept talking, "You are my nephew." 

His eyes went wide with shock again, this time at himself. He turned to Deaton, fury filling his face. 

"You did magic against me. You did some sort of truth spell. How? You shouldn't be able to use your magic against me, I made sure of that." 

"I can't use my magic against the true Lord of this land," Deaton answered, calmly, "but the true lord of this land just declared himself." 

Stiles felt relief to hear that. He hadn't been sure what it would take to get Deaton released from the oaths that bound him to serve Peter. It was good to know that it had been as simple as the right person declaring his position. If they'd needed Derek to get officially instated first, then Peter would have used Deaton against them without a doubt but now, watching this confrontation unfold, Stiles thought that they actually had a chance. 

"You don't deserve to rule," Peter snarled at Derek. "You were the one who showed that assassin the way into the castle. You're the reason for the fire. Don't think I don't know. When you did your bungled revenge spell and turned yourself into a wolf, it was the best thing for all of us because you never had the strength to rule. You were weak. You were duped too easily by that Argent bitch and you'll fall for every scam and pitiful beggar who comes to you with a petition. You would bankrupt this land within a month." 

Peter was still bound by the truth spell, which meant he believed every word he was saying. Stiles couldn't see Derek's face from this angle, but he could see the way his shoulders slumped a little when Peter had mentioned the fire. Stiles was learning things now that fit with the pieces he'd gathered from reading the history and the one-sided conversations he'd had with Derek in his wolf form. He'd known that Derek had blamed himself for some of his family's history, so it made sense to learn that he'd let the real assassin into the castle. His spell, intended to give strength to his family for their revenge, had become a trap, but the real trap was inside Derek's head. It was the belief that somehow he deserved it. And now, it was his belief that Peter might be right about his inability to rule well. 

Stiles let his invisibility drop and walked calmly into the middle of the conversation, taking a place at Derek's side. Around him, he was aware of all the weapons, the guards who were watching this scene play out. Even with the connection he still felt to the powerful currents, Stiles wasn't sure he would be able to protect them if the guards chose to attack. He had to focus on the weapon that had always been his first choice: his words. 

"Derek will make a far better ruler than you," Stiles said. "Because you are a hypocrite. You order that magic use in your lands be abolished and claim that it's because magic is evil, but that doesn't stop you using it. You just want to make sure that no one uses it against you. You have a magic worker in your employ," he gestured at Deaton, "and you used magic yourself to control Derek in his wolf form. You're afraid of someone using magic to attack you." 

"I was right to be afraid," Peter snarled at him. "You attacked me. Deaton turned on me. Of course I tried to control magic so no one could take what was mine." 

"So you admit that your persecution of magic workers was selfish? It was all about you?" 

"Of course it was all about me," Peter snapped. He was furious now and yelled an order to his guards, pointing at Deaton. "Kill him! He did a spell on me. He's forcing me to say these things. Kill him. Kill them all!" 

"The spell forces you to tell the truth," Deaton said, as the guards made no move to kill anyone. "You took your position here illegally, didn't you?" 

"Of course I did!" Peter slammed a hand over his mouth, trying to stop the words, but he kept talking, the words coming out muffled but still audible by everyone in that courtyard. "I stole the position from Derek and kept you from turning him back into a man because I deserve this position. I'm a better ruler than Derek would ever be and I'll see every one of you tortured to death for what you've done here tonight." 

If any of the guards had been thinking of siding with Peter, that was probably what swayed them. Peter was speaking the absolute truth, at least as far as he perceived it, and he hadn't said that he would torture Derek and Deaton, or only those who continued to defy his orders. He had threatened to kill all of them, and they all knew he meant it. Every one of them would die painfully for even hesitating if this situation turned out in Peter's favour. Stiles wasn't sure how many of the guards had already been swayed by Peter's confession that he was in power illegally, but the knowledge that Peter meant to kill them certainly couldn't hurt when it came to convincing them to do the right thing. 

It was Scott who broke from the crowd of watching guards, sword raised. "Peter Hale, you are under arrest." 

Peter gave a cry of rage and thrust his finger out towards Derek. "I challenge you!"

The words rang against the stones, louder even that Stiles' magically amplified voice had been. 

"It is my right!" Peter continued. "By the old traditions, as one of the Hale line, it is my right to challenge you for the title and for my honour." 

"A duel?" Derek said. 

"To the death." Peter stood tall, his uncontrollable fury replaced by calm determination. 

"I accept." 

Stiles ought to have been happy that it was coming to this, to a fight to the death between Peter and Derek, that there would be this chance for vengeance and Peter wouldn't be allowed to cheat. But they would be expected to fight with swords, no doubt, and Derek hadn't used a sword in years. He hadn't used hands in years. 

Stiles couldn't help being afraid that Derek had just signed his own death warrant by accepting.


	28. Chapter 28

The duel was to take place at once. Neither Peter nor Derek wanted this to be drawn out and it seemed that the guards and the gathered nobles who'd heard all that had happened at the gate were as eager as anyone to see an answer. This way, they wouldn't have to commit themselves to one side or that other until an outcome was decided, and then they could claim that was always the outcome they'd wanted. They could welcome Derek as the rightful over-thrower of a tyrant or celebrate Peter casting down an upstart newcomer without any risk to their lives or livelihoods. 

Stiles watched a square being marked out in the same castle courtyard where he'd trained with the sword. Now, with flickering torches and braziers in the corners adding their illumination to the red rays of sunrise light making it over the high walls, it looked a lot more menacing, as though the stones were already stained with blood. Deaton stood on one side of Stiles, his father on the other, watching as Derek lifted swords from a rack and tested their weight. 

"You can't interfere," Deaton warned him. "This is a challenge between Derek and Peter and they must be the ones to settle it. If you do magic of any sort to assist Derek, it would be treated the same as a guard firing a crossbow bolt into Peter's back. It would invalidate Derek's claim and Peter would be declared the winner, whether he lived or not." 

"But it's not a fair fight," Stiles said. Derek had been a wolf only that morning. How could he be expected to best anyone with a sword right now? This wasn't a fair trial. It wasn't going to be measured on the rightness of Derek's claim or Peter's, but on how skilled they were at killing people. 

Derek selected his sword. Peter already had his, belted at his waist in a way that seemed familiar and that made Stiles' heart sink further. Peter turned to him and gave a cold smile that promised pain and vengeance as soon as this technicality was out of the way. 

"You are still not bound by any oaths of loyalty," Deaton said quietly. "If Derek dies, you will be free to use your power to exact revenge." 

Stiles knew that if he did that, he would be an assassin, a criminal whose instant death would be the only option available for the guards who were positioned around the edge of the courtyard. Even with the connection to the currents of power flowing beneath his feet, Stiles didn't think he'd be able to kill Peter and protect himself. He didn't know the right words to make the spells that would make his survival possible. But he would do it all the same. If Peter killed Derek, Stiles would kill Peter. He would be dead either way and at least this way someone would put Peter in the ground where he belonged. 

He just hoped his dad would be able to get away. He wished he’d left his dad waiting outside the castle, but he’d followed inside as the preparations for the duel began. Maybe, it everything went wrong here, Stiles could use his last moments to cast the invisibility spell on his father again to keep him safe. 

Some lord in a purple robe stepped into the middle of the courtyard, announcing to all those assembled that this trial by combat would judge which of the two combatants had the right to claim the title of Lord Hale. He announced the rules, which were simple enough: a fight to the death with no pause for respite and no interference. If either man should try to flee the courtyard or use outside assistance, his life would be forfeit. 

Peter and Derek stood facing each other across the courtyard, swords raised in readiness. Derek was doing an admirable job of hiding his anxiety, but Peter exuded confidence, holding his sword in an easy grip. 

The lord called out, "Begin!" and hurriedly backed out of the way as Peter came in swinging. Derek moved his sword to defend against the first blow, stepping backwards to avoid it, but then Peter was attacking again. 

Stiles didn't know a great deal about sword work, but it was obvious that Peter was in control of this match. He attacked and Derek defended. He advanced and Derek retreated. He seemed as calm as ever while Derek moved frantically to counteract his blows. The swords clashed again and again, making the stone of the castle ring with the impact of metal. The sound was matched only by the pounding of Stiles' terrified heart in his ears as he watched in growing despair. Stiles clutched at his father's arm, eyes never leaving Derek, as he wished for some way to help that wouldn't cause Derek's death anyway. 

He'd been connected to all that power but now, when it mattered, he was powerless to help. 

Peter attacked again, moving his sword in a blur that flashed in the firelight. Stiles couldn't even follow what happened, but he twisted the blades together in a scrape of metal and then Derek's sword was falling to the paving stones, the clang resounding in Stiles' ears. Stiles drew in a gasping breath, fear filling his to bursting. 

"Look away," his dad advised, but how could Stiles look away? This was going to be Derek's last moment and he was going to watch every last moment of this nightmare, this death that Stiles had caused. He should have listened to his father. They should have just run. They could have been miles from here, safe and well, not facing down a man who would slaughter Derek where they stood. 

Stiles wondered if there was enough magic in the world to let him send them back in time to the point where he had made the decision to return. Was there enough magic to let him undo what he was witnessing right now. 

Peter drew back his sword, a smirk on his face. He paused, looking at Derek, seeming to savour this moment of his victory, while Derek panted in front of him, exhausted and beaten. 

"You should have stayed a wolf," Peter said. "You made a better animal than you do a man, and certainly a better fighter." He raised his sword high so that it would shine in the morning light, clearly not caring about protecting his body now that Derek had no weapon. Peter was the very image of smug satisfaction as he prepared to deal the killing blow. 

Then Derek moved. 

He didn't try to retreat or dive for his fallen sword. No, he leapt at Peter, hand outstretched, getting inside the reach of the raised sword to go for Peter's throat. 

Blood spurted, the dark liquid glinting in the firelight. Peter's expression changed from satisfaction to surprise as he staggered a step backwards, sword tumbling from his hand. A moment later, he too crumpled to the ground, motionless. The puddle of crimson stained the stones around him, spreading too far and too fast for there to be any hope of Peter surviving the blood loss. 

Derek had just won, but how? He'd held no weapon. 

But now he stood in the middle of the courtyard, staring down at the hand that was coated in his uncle's blood. Each finger of that hand ended in a claw that was lethally sharp. Those claws had an animal look to them and they were the weapon Derek had used to kill his uncle. Derek stared at those claws, as surprised as everyone else gathered in that courtyard.


	29. Chapter 29

Stiles felt eyes on him and remembered what Deaton had said about interference. 

"I didn't do that," he said quickly, feeling the need to pre-empt any objections to Derek's victory. 

"I think I did that," Derek said slowly, still staring at his hands. "Peter made the taunt about me staying a wolf and I remembered what it felt like to have claws, to have weapons that couldn't be taken away. I wanted them back and they came." As he stared, the claws shrank back into his fingers until there were perfectly ordinary nails, though they were still coated in blood. 

"If that is a residual effect of the magic you did on yourself," Deaton said, "then this victory is still entirely yours." 

Stiles was worried that not everyone would agree with that. He thought some might claim that Derek had cheated somehow, that killing Peter with magic claws invalidated the win, but it seemed that the gathered guards were happy to accept this as a righteous win. After all, if Peter hadn't taunted Derek, then he wouldn't have died. Some at least of the guards seemed to accept that, because Scott called out, "Lord Derek Hale!" in an enthusiastic shout. 

Once one had spoken, declaring this a victory, other voices joined in, the cry of triumph flowing around the edges of the courtyard. The guards and nobles cheered loudly. Either they felt that Derek deserved this win or they didn't want to be seen going against someone who could grow claws out of his fingers. Right then, Stiles didn't care whether this show was driven by genuine loyalty or simply caution. All he cared about was that Derek was alive, that he'd won. Peter was dead and Derek was safe. 

Stiles rushed forward, hardly caring about the blood puddle that made the paving slabs sticky beneath his feet. He threw his arms around Derek and hugged him tightly. Derek hesitated, standing there stiffly until Stiles pulled away. 

Maybe Derek hadn't wanted the blood on his hands to stain Stiles' clothes. Maybe he felt uncomfortable showing affection and celebration in front of the crowd who had witnessed him killing his only surviving relative. Or maybe he wasn't interested in hugging a peasant-born magic worker now that he was officially lord of these lands. 

Stiles felt suddenly very nervous and uncomfortable. 

"Well done, Derek," he said, backing up to give Derek space. 

"Thank you," Derek answered. Stiles wasn't sure if he was thanking him for the praise or for all that had come before it. 

The noble who had announced the start of the match came forward, finding a space that was free from blood and dropping to one knee. 

"My Lord Hale," he said, "there is much to discuss regarding your official inauguration and the state of your lands, but would you prefer to bathe and eat first?" 

Derek had barely looked away from his bloody hands to listen to this question and he looked back at them now. 

"Yes," he said. "Yes. I would like to bathe." 

Stiles knew he must be in a terrible state too. He was happy to let the servants be summoned so that they could lead them to bathing rooms, but Stiles hesitated at the last moment as he realised that this meant he was going to be separated from Derek. He had no reason to be afraid, not now that Derek was officially the ruler here, and especially since he apparently had magical powers to transform at least partly into a wolf, but still he didn't like the idea of being apart. For so long, Derek had been the one person Stiles could be sure wasn't really an enemy, even when he hadn't really been a person. Splitting up from him now felt dangerous, even though his dad was beside him, a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

Derek looked at Stiles, as though he might say something, but then he walked away, going into the room the servants had indicated. Stiles let himself be led into the room beside it, where a fire blazed and servants were already pouring steaming water from the metal vat over the fire into the narrow bath. Stiles tried to calm himself with the knowledge that Derek was only a wall away. He would hear if anything went wrong. For now, Stiles should just accept what was being offered. 

A servant girl curtsied to Stiles before she left the room, leaving him confused and awkward. No one had curtsied when he was a prisoner here, so he wasn't sure the right way to react to it now. He decided he could worry about that after the bath. He sank into the hot water, allowing himself a few minutes to just enjoy the warmth that wasn't magically generated, and then he started scrubbing away at the dirt and grime that had accumulated during his escape and the return. 

It didn't take too long for the anxiety to return, so he climbed out and dried himself off, finding that someone had laid out clean clothes for him. The clothes were simple but neatly made and he pulled them on gladly, before leaving the bathing room. The door to the room beside his was open and there was no sign of Derek. Irrational as it was, Stiles felt a rush of fear that something might have happened to him, that one of Peter's allies might have decided to get revenge, or some guard might have decided they didn't want to work for a lord with magical powers and stabbed him from behind. 

Stiles headed back towards areas of the castle he was more familiar with until he found a servant and could ask where Derek was. 

"Lord Hale," the girl answered, "is in the study taking audience with the castle's clerks." 

Stiles had to ask for directions, but he found the study soon enough. Two guards stood to attention on either side, eyeing Stiles warily. As he approached the door, they moved to block his way. 

"May I see Derek?" Stiles asked. 

"Lord Hale," the guard stressed the title, "is in a meeting. Once that meeting is over, we will ask his secretary if his lordship has time to see you." 

"Right. Of course." Because Stiles was a peasant, a villager with no title or rank, no claim to be here except that he'd been the one to make this happen for Derek. Stiles was so used to being able to see Derek whenever he liked that it hurt to be blocked from him, but he had to remember that this was the way things were now. Derek was a lord and Stiles was a nobody. He might be able to convince Derek to let him stay here and learn from Deaton, but he would be another servant of a lord, expecting to obey and show deference. He should have known better than to believe he and Derek could be friends at the end of it all. 

Stiles slunk back through the halls of the castle and made his way back to the tower he knew so well, climbing the steps to Deaton's workroom. He found Deaton sitting by the fire, talking quietly to Stiles' father, who hurried over to embrace Stiles once again. 

"Congratulations," Deaton said. Stiles nodded, accepting the praise but not really feeling in a mood to celebrate even with their victory, even with Peter dead and Derek in his rightful place. Stiles hadn't thought this through far enough, he hadn't pictured what would happen after they won, hadn't even really believed that winning was possible. He should have known that rank and propriety would keep him and Derek apart. 

Stiles tried to push that though to one side and focused on Deaton. 

"Are you still going to be all mysterious and secretive now?" he asked. 

Deaton smiled. "My oaths of secrecy ended when Peter Hale died, though there may still be some secrets I feel you're not ready to hear." 

"Did you know what would happen when you helped me and Derek escape?" 

"No one can ever know the future. Even those whose magic lets them work in prophecies and predictions can only ever know what _might_ happen. I hoped that when you went to the nemeton, you will feel the power there and begin to sense the currents of power that flow through this world, and learn to direct those powers to perform more complex magic. I thought that might give you the strength to continue your studies and find the way to restore Derek. I didn't expect it to happen so quickly. That was quite a display last night. How did you gain such power in such a short space of time?" 

So Stiles explained about sitting on the tree to rest and feeling the power, about the currents and the way he could somehow see magic, see how it all worked, how he could just look at Derek and understand the way the spell had been woven around him. 

"Most of it faded as soon as I left the tree," Stiles said, "but I can _feel_ magic in a way I couldn't before." 

He stopped, catching the way Deaton was staring at him, shocked and almost afraid. 

"That was very dangerous," Deaton said. 

"Connecting to the tree, you mean?" 

"The nemeton is a conduit for magic, a beacon of sorts for the powers that flow through reality, and it has deep ties to those powers, connections to places and people near and far who are involved with that magic in some way." 

Stiles remembered the way he'd followed the lines in his mind to this place, how he'd been able to identify Peter and Deaton without having to even really think about it. He nodded. 

"It's very easy for a person to get lost attempting to make such a connection," Deaton continued. "Even experienced practitioners would not attempt such a joining without a great deal of training and preparation, and with another person there to act as an anchor, to guide them back to their body if necessary. What you did could have left your spirit floating in the world somewhere and your body open to possession by some other entity. You are lucky your father was able to call you back." 

It wasn't just his father who'd called him back, Stiles knew. He'd heard Derek's voice as well. If either of them had served as an anchor linking him to his physical form then they both had, but listening to Deaton speak, to the serious tone of his voice, Stiles realised how significant that moment had been. And he hadn't even intended to do such a dangerous spell. He hadn't known such a spell was possible. 

"Maybe if it was so dangerous," Stiles said, "you could have given me some warning? Like maybe telling me that the big old tree stump you were suggesting as a meeting place was really a magical beacon thing and that I needed to be careful around it." 

"Peter forbade me from talking about the nemeton in case anyone tried to use its power against him." 

"You've worked your way around Peter's silence orders before. We could have had another hypothetical conversation. You could have told me that places like that exist even if you couldn't tell me the specifics. You could have given me some warning, however vague." 

"Stiles," Deaton cut him off before Stiles got too deep into his rant, "I didn't imagine that you would attempt such a connection so I didn't know that I needed to warn you, but if I had warned you, we wouldn't be in this situation right now. Peter would still be alive, Derek would still be trapped in wolf form, and I would still be bound by oaths to a tyrant. It would have been safer for you if I had warned you, but can you honestly say that you would have preferred for events to have transpired another way?" 

Stiles couldn't argue with that. He was glad that Derek was free of the curse and that Peter was dead, he really was, and if he had to connect to the nemeton a thousand times for that situation to be true, then he would do so. He just wished that somewhere in Deaton's words had been something that resembled an apology. And no matter what Deaton had said, he couldn't help the feeling that Deaton had planned all of this. He might have said he hadn't expected Stiles to make the connection, but Stiles was entirely unconvinced that he was telling the truth.


	30. Chapter 30

Stiles went back down to Derek's study after a while, hoping that Derek's meeting would be over and he would be free to talk to him, but the guards stood barring the way still, eyeing Stiles warily. They told him to speak to Lord Hale's secretary and directed him to an office two doors down from the ornately carved entrance to Derek's new study. 

Stiles went and knocked, entering when invited. The man sitting behind the desk was someone he'd never spoken to in his time as a prisoner here. He was as neatly dressed as any lord and looked at Stiles as though he were a slimy bug crawling across a freshly cleaned floor. 

"I'd like to talk to Derek," Stiles said. "The guards said I need to ask you." 

"Lord Hale," the secretary stressed the title with the same note of distaste in his voice, "has a great deal to do learning about his new position and catching up on several years of events he missed while he was... incapacitated. His time is valuable. What precisely do you want to bother him with?" 

Stiles hadn't been prepared to answer that question. The only answer he could think of was: everything. He wanted to check that Derek was doing alright. He'd been through a hell of a lot, what with becoming human again and then discovering that he could still change shape into a wolf, at least partly, not to mention killing his only surviving relative. Stiles wanted to check that Derek was coping with all that had happened and offer comfort if it was required. He wanted to know if they were still friends now that Derek's human form was restored. He wanted to know what he was supposed to do now and where he was supposed to go. 

Stiles decided to start with that. That was something he felt more comfortable talking about with a stranger. 

"I want to ask him about my situation here," he said. "I was a prisoner here under Peter Hale, Am I now Derek's prisoner? Or am I free?" 

Stiles didn't believe Derek would keep him a prisoner after having experienced being locked up and chained, but it provided a suitable excuse for the conversation. 

"I will ask Lord Hale at our next meeting and pass the answer on to you," the secretary said. 

"It would be better if I could discuss it with him directly," Stiles pressed. 

"That's not necessary." 

"Please, can you just tell Derek that I want to talk to him?" 

"I doubt his schedule would allow it, but I will check." 

That was probably the best Stiles was going to get, so he thanked the man and got out of there. 

Derek's new secretary might hate him for some reason, but Stiles quickly realised that the servants were in awe of him, so he had no difficulty arranging for food and for his dad to get a bed for the night in the tower, close to Stiles' room. No one attempted to lock Stiles up, so he moved about the castle with more freedom than he'd ever been allowed before. 

The following day, after a fine breakfast, he went to see the secretary again, who he learned was called Harris. Harris informed Stiles that he was not a prisoner and was free to go if he wished. It wasn't a command to go though, so Stiles took that as an invitation to stay if he wished. He asked about seeing Derek and was told no, so he spent the day talking to Scott and studying the books in Deaton's workshop, filling his mind with words of magic that no longer seemed to dribble out his ears as soon as they had passed in through his eyes. 

The day after, he went to see Harris again and was told that Derek had no time to see him, and was told the same again the day after that, and the day after that. It was clear to Stiles that Derek was avoiding him. Being busy was no longer enough to explain why Derek hadn't managed to find even five minutes to talk to him. Had Stiles offended him somehow? Had his treatment of Derek while he was a wolf been patronising or hurtful in some way that meant he couldn't bear to even be in the same room as Stiles for five minutes now? Was Derek angry at him because the spell to turn him back hadn't worked completely? 

Maybe he should have just left. Perhaps Derek's message saying that he wasn't a prisoner here had been meant as an instruction to leave. The thought made something ache inside Stiles. He returned to Harris' office once more, deciding that if he couldn't get a meeting with Derek today, he would start making plans to leave. Perhaps he could get lodgings in town somewhere and still be able to meet up with Deaton for training. He could make gold out of thin air, so he wasn't going to run out of money any time soon. 

He found Harris seated behind his desk, a scroll on one side of him and a heavy book on the other. Harris looked up at Stiles with the usual expression of distaste on his face. 

"Lord Hale's schedule is still very busy," Harris said. "Usually an heir would have spent several years working alongside the former lord, learning the duties and meeting the important contacts, but this Lord Hale is having to establish himself without that history and experience. He doesn't have time to deal with pestering children." 

"I'm only asking for five minutes," Stiles said. 

"And what makes you think that the answer today will be any different from the answer yesterday? If you can't learn something so basic, I'm astonished you're capable of reading one of your spell books." 

His tone remained that of someone forced to deal with an unpleasant mess in front of him. But it seemed Harris was wrong and today would be different, because that was the moment when the door to the office opened and Derek walked in, already talking. 

"Harris, do you have the list of..." Derek stopped. He stared at Stiles, surprise on his face and, perhaps, a small smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Stiles. I thought you left." 

"How could you think I left when I've been asking to see you every day for a week?" 

"You've been asking to see me?" 

They understood the truth together and both turned to look at Harris, who seemed unconcerned at having been caught acting as an obstacle between them. 

"You have a great deal to attend to, my lord," Harris said, bowing his head slightly, his voice betraying none of the disgust he'd been showing minutes earlier. "As your secretary, it is my job to manage your schedule. While you establish your rule, it seemed wise to ensure you met with the people whose support and influence you will require, rather than wasting time with pestering youths." 

Derek's voice was cold, and Stiles wouldn't have been surprised if he started growling. "This pestering youth is the reason I am human again." 

"Yet another reason to be cautious of him. He is a magic worker, and therefore dangerous. It wouldn't do for you to fall under his spell. He might wish to use his evil powers to manipulate you and use you as a puppet while he ruled from the shadows behind him." 

"As you were trying to do?" Derek asked. 

"I have no magic, my lord." 

"No, but you were trying to manipulate me, by deciding who gets to meet me without even telling me who had asked, by controlling what messages I get to see and hear. These important merchants I'm to dine with today, are they your cronies who you wish to help, or are they people who offered you the most gold for a chance to influence me?" 

Harris sat up straighter and attempted to bluster, "I would never take a bribe, my lord." 

"But you would try to control me. You think I'm some naive fool, unaware of politics and my position, so you seek to establish yourself behind the scenes, manipulating my meetings and information, so I do the things you want me to do." 

"Of course not, my lord," but Harris didn't sound too sure of himself in the face of Derek's glare. "The boy wanted to know if he could leave, so I passed the message on. I was just doing my job." 

"No, you weren't," Derek said, "because it's not your job anymore. You are no longer my secretary." 

Harris tried to protest, claiming that Derek needed him, that this was all a misunderstanding, that the witch boy was controlling him somehow. Derek didn't listen. He went to the office door and called his guards in. 

"Escort Mr Harris out of the castle and ensure that those on duty at the gate know he is not to be allowed back in." 

After having faced that look on disgust on Harris' face for several days, it was very satisfying to watch the guards take hold of his elbows and pull him towards the door, still protesting that Derek would need him, that he would regret this. Derek closed the door firmly behind them and then he and Stiles were alone in the office. 

Stiles felt his heart leaping inside him, a giddy feeling of joy in his chest that Derek hadn't been avoiding him, that he did want to see him after all. The strength of his reaction surprised him, but he didn't fight it. He just smiled and closed the distance between them, putting his arms around Derek and hugging him just as easily as he might when he was a wolf. 

"I missed you," Stiles said. 

Warm arms wrapped around his back, pulling him close. Derek's smell was different now, but Stiles imagined he could still smell something of the wolf in it. 

"I thought you left," Derek said. "That you didn't want to see me. I thought you went away without saying goodbye." 

"Never. You're my friend, Derek." 

"Friend," Derek repeated. His arms fell away from Stiles' back and he stepped out of the hug, putting distance between them again. "Of course." 

He smiled, but there was something forced about it, and his eyes flicked down to Stiles' lips. Stiles wondered if 'friend' hadn't been what Derek had been thinking regarding that hug. Stiles found his heart racing now, almost as scared as he'd been the night they'd made their escape because if he was wrong about this then he could damage things between them forever, but he was excited too. A world of possibilities lay before him as Stiles stepped forward and pressed his lips against Derek's. 

They stood there for a moment, frozen, lips touching in a way that was more awkward than romantic, and Stiles was filled with the fear that he'd just made a horrible mistake, but then Derek moved, wrapping his arms around Stiles once again. His mouth opened, inviting him in, and then they were kissing in a way that banished fear and left Stiles with only that fluttery feeling of excitement. 

But the fear kept pressing at him, trying to get back inside. A part of Stiles wanted to tear both their clothes off and make love right here on Harris' desk, but how could they be sure that this was right? After all they'd both been through, how could they be sure of anything? 

When they came up for air, Stiles admitted, "I don't know what I'm doing here." 

"Neither do I," Derek responded. 

"Maybe we should take things slowly. After all, you're still figuring out how to be human after being a wolf all that time, and I'm getting used to not having the threat of death and dismemberment hanging over my head. We should take our time and not rush into anything." 

"If that's what you want." Derek started to move back again, but Stiles kept a hand on his arm, not letting him move too far out of reach. 

"We have time to figure this out. We can each work out who we are and work out how we fit together. We can get this right." 

"You promise?" Derek seemed almost frightened. 

"I'm not going anywhere," Stiles promised. Derek smiled a little at that, and pulled him in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End. 
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this fic. Thank you to everyone who's commented.
> 
> For whatever random fandom stuff has caught my interest this week, come [follow me on Tumblr](http://jessicameats.tumblr.com). For more about my writing, [check out my blog](http://plot-twister.co.uk).


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